>This email from our superintendent was sent to subscribers of Travell enews but should be available to everyone in the community.
Toward the end, Dr. Brennan makes it clear he intends for the whole district to move toward the horrid Everyday Math curriculum.January 10, 2008
What are we going to do about math?
You are cordially invited to sit in on a discussion of this topic, to be held this coming Monday, January 14, at 7:30 p.m in the third-floor Board Room of the Ed Center. We will be televising on Cablevision Channel 77. The program will then be video cast and podcast from our website, so you can download and play at your convenience. We will be following up with visits to each faculty and Home and School Association meeting in either January or February as their schedules allow. We will then report the information from the faculties and school HSA’s back to the Board to help them form a decision on our proposed action plan.
At the meeting this Monday, the Board, central office administrators and all of the district principals will discuss moving Ridgewood forward in k-5 math curriculum, instruction and assessment, as a part of a coordinated k-12 program. Right now we are in good shape, but, as one of my colleagues likes to say, “Ridgewood did not get to be Ridgewood by standing pat.”
Our SAT scores have improved almost every year for the past five years and are now higher than the average of New Jersey private school college-bound seniors. The SAT math scores at RHS are actually higher than the verbal, which are also high. State testing also shows good results. Aggregated performance remains at 90-95% passing in all areas. Elementary schools meet or exceed comparable school districts in 12 of 12 math tests administered since 2002. Our middle schools did the same for 7 of the 10 tests, while the high school met or exceeded the top districts on 5 out of 6 math tests administered at grade 11 since 2002.
Noting an opportunity for improvement at the middle school, last year we introduced Connected Mathematics II at Grade six. This year the second level of CMPII was introduced at Grade seven. Next year, for the first time in the history of the school district, Algebra will be offered to all eighth grade students. The American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences has ranked Connected Mathematics (1998) number one in a study of middle school math textbooks
(https://www.project2061.org/publications/textbook/mgmth/report/).
Here’s a preview of what the elementary principals will be advancing for the Board’s consideration. Using the Ridgewood model that has been so successful in our literacy programs, we offer the idea of teaming with a university to share expertise and information. For the remainder of the current school year, that would mean appointing a group to evaluate local research and instruction faculties, including both mathematicians and math educators. Over the course of the 2008-2009 school year we would work with that university, using sophisticated assessment to help answer key questions relative to the needs of our students. By September of 2009, Ridgewood students would be using new curriculum, procedures and materials, to the extent that they are needed.
Our proposed timetable coincides with a good deal of information that should be coming our way. The President’s Panel, a group of math experts called together in Washington, should be presenting their report this April. The Department of Education has awarded a fifty million dollar grant to do a national study of different math programs. Across the nation, other federal dollars will be propelling four regional laboratories, one at Rutgers, to evaluate current math programs for effectiveness. This should stimulate the publishing companies to get busy preparing materials to match the national findings.
Here’s what we won’t be recommending to the Board. The states who knee- jerked against reform math, California in particular, have once again endured the empty experience of running headlong toward the mirage called “back to basics.” Last month, Education Week reported that the California Department of Education admitted its legislatively mandated traditional math programs have not generated the results they wanted. They are switching statewide to Everyday Math, a reform program currently used in Somerville and Ridge Schools here in Ridgewood.
In Pittsburgh, where some schools use traditional texts and some use Everyday Math, a study commissioned by the Board of Education with Mathematica Inc. concluded that the results achieved by students in the two programs are indistinguishable. Cost of the study: $60,000. One conclusion noted in the study: It’s actually the teachers, not the materials, that make the difference. We could have told them that.
I hope that you find a way to be a part of our discussion over the next several months. Please give me a call (201)270-2700, or drop me an email, tbrennan@ridgewood.k12.nj.us, if you have questions or ideas.
Tim
