HOT TOPICS

 

Board of Education Meeting, June 11

4:45 @ Booth Street; 

Public Comment begins at 6:00 PM

 

Agenda Items:

 

1.  The NORTH EAST MIDDLE SCHOOL PTSO Needs your support !

The NEMS PTSO will present a New Renovation Request!

 

2.  The  CCPS administration’s plan for a “System’s Approach” to Resolve the Math Issue.

 

The administration failed in 3 attempts so far to have someone (anyone!) approve or defend their math curriculum:

a)  Their briefing of 23 April, which highlighted the professionalism of their teachers, but which provided no defense for the weak math curriculum.  It did delay matters 7 weeks.

b)  The administration had local college professors review the Integrated Math textbookand supplemental

 material prepared by Georgia Wensell.  Both received a terrible review by the professors.

c)  The administration had Dr. Teigland participate in the BOE visitations to teachers, to solicit their input.  In spite of the added presence of a high-level administrator - teacher comments about the program were NOT positive.

 

So now the administration plans a review OUTSIDE THE COUNTY - by UMBC!  Obviously, they are desperate to prolong this until they find somebody - anybody - to approve their programs! 

 

 

School Board Request for Replacement of Inferior Textbooks

 

A formal request was made to the CCPS school board on 5 March 2007, asking that Everyday (K-5), and Connected Math (6-8 general math)  be replaced with classical textbooks and curricula. 

 

Also, an alternative textbook for Integrated Math  (algebra and geometry) for college-bound students has been requested. 

 

The presentation slides used in this briefing are provided in ., Full details are given in the

 

The slides and report include: 1)  data by the Maryland Higher Education Commission that reveal that Cecil County students have one of the highest rates for requiring math remediation in Maryland;  2) mathematicians ranked the textbooks used at all K-algebra 2 levels as poor and unacceptable;  3)  the percentage of CCPS students that take the SAT is about 30% lower than the Maryland average, and much more.

 

Status: 

The Cecil County Public School Board has yet to respond to this request of 5 March 2007  ! 

 

Please encourage your School Board to partner with us to improve CCPS math.

 

Everyday Math “Student Reference Book”

An Everyday Math “Student Reference Book” was on for review at the Elkton Library until May 3rd.

This is a hard-cover encyclopedia of sorts for Everyday Math. It is not meant to be either a textbook or workbook, but rather a costly supplemental book that every elementary school student would receive. It is a summary of Everyday’s methods for simple first-grade level up to the 5th grade level.

One has to wonder why a first-grader would need a reference book that included how to multiply fractions, or why a 5th grade student would need to review his first grade lessons – unless of course, he spiraled too fast to learn properly in the first place..

Perhaps we should be investing our money in ensuring that our students fully understand the first time material is presented, and not move to a new topic until they do.

In that case, it hardly seems necessary to have an Elementary Math Book Encyclopedia. This seems to be just one more scheme for the authors of these inferior textbooks to earn a profit.

The following websites present reviews of the Everyday Mathematics textbooks:

http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/books2g.htm http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/books5h.htm

Also, see http://www.illinoisloop.org/mathprograms.html, Scroll down to Everyday, and there are many additional websites referenced

 

Thank you for filling out the review forms to help defeat this Textbook!

The curriculum is still alive – but at least we are throwing less money at it.