Times Writes about Singapore at Schmitz Park

Seattle Times editorial writer, Bruce Ramsey, wrote about the success of Singapore math taught at Schmitz Park.

Comments

udubgrad said…
I have talked to pretty much all of the teachers at Schmitz Park, and they love teaching Singapore Math and are so grateful for the waiver. Apparently their decision to apply for a waiver was unanimous. No one should ever under-estimate how important it is that teachers be allowed to teach what they believe in. They find students get a firm foundation in math concepts, are able to solve complex problems and get enough practice for mastery. The mental math skills students develop is an added plus--parents are amazed that their second child can do mental calculations they can't. When I saw the bar model method that is used for solving complex story problems, I thought that it sure would have made my algebra classes easier. Wow! It would be great if everyone could learn math this way.
2/17/10, 9:31 AM
Anonymous said…
Singapore Math at Schmitz Park ROCKS!!
2/17/10, 10:22 AM
ParentofThree said…
What irrates me is how much $$$ they spend on materials and how much they talk about cirriculum alignment and creating equity in schools etc. And then we see schools getting these waivers. I know RHS has already put in for a waiver to dump the Discovery Math.

Great news for those students in those schools!!! But the rest of us, we are stuck with EDM, CMP2 and DM.
2/17/10, 1:04 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
And again, the quiet and growing influence of PTAs and fund raising. It's one thing to be able to fund after-school art; it's another to hire a teacher and buy materials.
2/17/10, 1:38 PM
ArchStanton said…
And again, the quiet and growing influence of PTAs and fund raising.

Which will further divide the haves and have-nots.

If you go to school in an affluent community AND the school community is involved and informed AND your school can afford to buy decent math curriculum and materials AND SPS will let you have a waiver, THEN you stand a chance of getting a decent math education.

I don't fault anyone for avoiding EDM/CMP2/DM. Nice work if you can get it.

It just seems those least well served by inquiry-based math are the ones least likely to avoid it.
2/17/10, 2:19 PM
Anonymous said…
I am curious to know how Schmitz Park was able to obtain a waiver. Can any school get a waiver if they have the means to purchase the necessary materials?
2/17/10, 2:43 PM
udubgrad said…
Given the present situation, "holding schools accountable" starts looking a little Kafkaesque: demand (most) schools use inferior math curricula and then beat up the teachers when scores go down. Of course far worse is the students whose futures are jeopardized under this kind of mismanagement.
2/17/10, 5:59 PM
dan dempsey said…
Dear iamRobin2,

SP at the time of the EDM adoption had at least two really good things going for them.

#1 they had other projects they were undertaking and negotiated to not implement EDM in 2007-2008 as they were too busy to do all this new stuff. Thus they got to stick with the old.

Except almost all teachers began using Singapore Math .... flying low under Carla's radar.

Then came the other factor ... in that those spring 2008 kids did extremely well on the middle school math placement going into Madison.

That made life really difficult for not granting the waiver for 2008-2009.... Also DeBell had awakened by this time.

#2 is Craig Parsley he had been messing around with Singapore math for a long time.
=========================

The problem with EDM is that the spineless mindless Board allowed Carla the Bully to bully them into a unanimous vote for EDM when there was little evidence for such a vote.... See the pattern.

At least "Discovering" passed with 3 dissenting votes not 0.

Chow, Carr, Sundquist, Maier all voting for.

=========================

Anyway today Arch is at work on some 300 dpi work for our first run of T-Shirts

Information on placing your order is HERE.

The Art Work will be much better as it is tough to get much up on a blog but you can get the idea.

Choose any size and one of three colors.

=======================
Also we shall be hunting for plaintiffs for the coming appeal of the Board's approval of the $800,000 NTN contract.

In which: Carr, Sundquist, Maier, and Martin-Morris voted for the contract. Each Failed to notice that there was insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve this NTN contract proposal.

The first three of those directors made no attempt to use any evidence when explaining their votes at least Harium gave it a shot.

Sherry told us why NTN was picked but failed to evaluate whether it was any good beyond reading Vendors' brochures and calling the vendors and calling principals. LOOK at the DATA!!! It sucks for every one of these schools

Steve told us that the Students at NT Sacramento were "engaged and poised", with great delivery. He also mentioned some high rates but provided no data sources other that it was his understanding. He said there were questions about the mixed academic performance of the newer schools.

ODD thing to say he visited NT Sacramento founded in 2003 ... one of the older ones. He knew their performance was abysmal if he read anything I sent him or listened to my testimony on January 20th.

Peter was just thrilled that this vote was about STEM schools with Project Based Learning and that was good enough for his vote right there and he said so.
============
I sent these people a sheet on how to stay out of Superior Court ... by using and citing evidence and then Peter a Lawyer and Harvard grad says nothing about evidence.

......Whhaattt !!!! a dufuss

I don't care if 82 kids are coming from Ballard are the NTN schools any good Peter? Stay on Task..Please.
2/17/10, 6:23 PM
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