North Kitsap School District Math Action

During the past decade, traditional math programs all across the country have been under attack. Non-traditional programs have emerged which emphasize discovery learning over direct instruction, shun math-fact memorization and use of standard, efficient computational tools (algorithms), and displace other available and proven math curricula such as Saxon Math. They abandon the goal of computational fluency at increasing levels of skill in favor of conceptual "math appreciation" exercises. They waste our childrens time with simplistic busywork and group activities, value English literacy and pictorial representation over numeracy (the language of mathematics), and progress at a far slower pace than the curricula used in the highest performing countries in the world.

One of the most radical of these reform math programs is Investigations in Number, Data and Space developed by the Technical Education Research Center (TERC Investigations). The TERC Investigations program does not teach long division, multiplication tables or many other commonly accepted methods of arriving at an answer in a systematic fashion. As a result, students using TERC Investigations typically face significant difficulties with timed exams. Instead, TERC Investigations utilizes approximation and educated guessing to merely bring the student close to the correct answer.

Despite the administrations insistence on maintaining the use of TERC Investigations, no valid math study to date has ever proven the effectiveness of this program. In fact, the studies that have been carried out were funded by the same organizations that developed TERC Investigations and had a heavy stake in the programs effectiveness. Hundreds of leading university math professors and Nobel Laureates, who have no financial ties to TERC Investigations, condemn this math program. Even with extensive supplementation, the core of the program remains hollow and is not worth the effort to preserve.

Connected Math and College Preparatory Math, recently implemented in the North Kitsap District, continue the same instructional methods used in TERC Investigations through to 12th grade. School districts nationwide have been fighting these reform programs with success. In September 2006, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) released a report titled Curriculum Focal Points. The document highlighted the paramount importance of traditional mathematics instruction, a shift from their previously issued standards that led to reform math programs. The Curriculum Focal Points document advocates the return to more traditional mathematics instructional strategies, such as quick recall of addition and related subtraction facts, fluency of multiplication and division facts, and mastery of traditional algorithms.

Under legislative pressure and in response to poor statewide math results on the WASL, the Washington State Board of Education has reviewed existing state math standards and they have been given a flunking grade. These standards are what led to the popularity and adoption of these curricula around the state. OSPI will be undertaking an overhaul of these standards in the coming months in response to the SBEs report. It is to be hoped and expected that new math curricula will be recommended to take the place of the current crop. Our community is not alone in its fight to remove reform math programs from the curricula. In the meantime, a generation of children has already been subjected to educational experimentation while tutoring services are growing exponentially and math remediation rates at state universities have never been higher.

Based upon these facts, it would be unacceptable to continue the TERC Investigations, Connected Math and College Preparatory Math programs into any additional school years. For the benefit of our children, our school district and our community, the undersigned petitioners urge the North Kitsap school district to eliminate these three curricula and replace them with a more traditional math program for the 2008-2009 school year, if not sooner.