Math Wars; Eastside

This article appeared in today's Times. It's old-school math versus the conceptual math, Singapore versus Everyday Math. What's interesting on the Eastside is that people are running for school boards because of the issue. The only Seattle SB candidate that mentions it is Dan Dempsey, running in West Seattle.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Peter Maier has spoken at a school board forum and on the Educating mom blog about the need to improve math, and particularly to focus on a new more traditional curriculum. He also talks a lot about the need to work with and re-train teachers so that they can properly deliver a new curriculum.
7/12/07, 2:21 PM
Anonymous said…
the article is a reasonable synopsis of the math wars.

I took my first math ed classes at the u.w. over a decade ago, picked up my cert 2.5 yrs ago, and
after 2 years of teaching high school math,

and having toooooooo many kids with scanty basic skills, who are them constantly stopped cold in word problems,

the fuzzy math is perfect for a culture that is extremely supportive of lazy 'work', and the mythical 'math phobia / block' nonsense.

it seems to me to most amenable to people who need 60 pages to say what could be said in 6 bullet points.

anon on sat.
7/14/07, 1:48 AM
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