>
Visit www.vormath.info
VORMATH went straight to the horses mouth. They contacted The Star Ledger regarding the “RANK school performance” tool.
The Star Ledger did some minor tweaks to their tool. It is a rank. It is in list format. And it still shows Travell lagging the other elementary schools in the Ridgewood District.
Way to go math moms.
>i love when a BOE kiss up tries to put these bad behavior on every one else stop the bull ,the real truth is if you disagtee you get attacked ….the fact that the BOE and Ridgewood Snooze and a few fools had to copy this blog to try to undermine it is proof enough…
>conspiracy theorists
case in point: 11:29
Ridgewood Snooze
oh that reminds me, I forgot to add “Ridgewood News haters” to the list of village cranks
>case in point: 11:29 I love it thanks for agreeing with me so if you disagree with you I must be crank …your not going to silence people no matter how hard you try
>11:29/11:42 — I am agreeing that you are a conspiracy theorist. Without a shred of evidence, you’ve concluded that I’m Charlie Reilly. Go ahead, if that eases your disordered mind.
btw I’m not trying to silence you; I’m laughing at you.
>Sometimes you gotta stick up for what you believe, regardless of how others misconstrue and misunderstand.
I would hope that those who believe in the petition would have the courage to sign it.
It’s a sad state of affairs that so many are afraid.
>Dear Lunatic,
In regard to this statement….
“Unfortunately, however, the Math Moms’ cause has been hijacked by the Lunatic Fringe. I did not want my name to be publicly linked with the “usual suspects” of village cranks, i.e., the conspiracy theorists, BOE haters, professional complainers, Ridgewood haters, frivolous lawsuit filers, Jersey haters, and assorted other persons in the village who seem to have problems with authority figures.”
Mr. PJ Blogger did not sign that petition, so go ahead and sign the petition. Maybe you can “hijack” the cause away from him.
You are clearly lying here, thinking we are all stupid.
You would not sign that petition simply because you are a BOE supporter.
If you really thought the Math was bad for Ridgewood and your home’s resale value or you wanted to support your neighbors who are stuck with it in Travell and Orchard, you would sign that petition.
You are simply lying about “the lunatic fringe” association.
Now that is not very nice.
>Lunatic,
“(btw, kudos to Ms Moran & the VORMATH person for all their hard work).”
Did you know that Mr. Goldenberg, the Ridgewood Views spokesman for reform math, allowed posts on his blog that bashed Ms. Moran personally and even made fun of her name?
Did you know that he posted so nastily on her blog that she got discouraged and closed her blog down? Congratulations, she’s out of the business of Math Mom and is just taking care of her own kids.
Did you know the moderators at Drexel are thinking about kicking him off their Math discussion site because he often personally attacks his critics?
I think the anti-TERC folks would rather have PJ and the GOP supporting them than someone like Michael Paul Goldenberg.
You should google him and read through his blog and posts before you answer this.
>Keep persevering Math Moms … you are providing us with invaluable information about the TERC program. Thanks for double-checking the Star Ledger school performance ranking.
Disregard WTLF’s comments … this guy (who appears to have a severe inferiority complex) has always used bully boy tactics to scare away those residents with intelligence. Dr. Phill would say never give into a bully. Ignore his comments and keep forging ahead. You are to be commended for your respectfulness, intelligence and civility.
>1:42 is right math moms — keep up the good fight. You’re holding our administrators feet to the fire by questioning the terc curriculum.
Our schools need more parents like you who not only demand the highest standards for all our children but are trying to raise our current standards. THANK YOU.
>as a former teacher in Ridgewood ,I see no reason to persue TERC unless there is some kind of a financial interest
>6:41 — Yes, doesn’t it make sense for them to just drop it at this point? Why do you think they’re so insistent about hanging on? Any theory from the inside as to what could be motivating them?
>grant money for the Ridgewood Education foundation
>used to be at RHS…
“grant money for the Ridgewood Education foundation”
Don’t they get that no matter what they curriculum they use?
Most NSF funding goes to colleges, like Montclair State. Then Ridgewood sends it’s teachers to Montclair State for training. So Montclair State is truly the one benefiting from the purchase of CMP2. Ridgewood does do a lot of business with Montclair State and it is Dr. Ive’s alma mater. Don’t we recruit from there rather than Teachers College Columbia?
Ridgewood would benefit is if the curriculum is low cost or free. Then Ridgewood agrees to send the teachers to training via Prism, which makes Montclair State money. This frees up budget dollars allocated for curriculum and satisfies any staff development requirements that the District needs to meet.
Maybe the Pearson Rep. gives nice Christmas presents.
Maybe the curriculum folks have true friendships with the Pearson Reps.
These are all theories; there is no evidence for this. Theories come about because we wonder why anyone buy a controversial program which has parents truly upset if you didn’t have a compelling reason to do so. Ms. Botsford could have just put the same curriculum in Hawes and Willard in Orchard and Travell and quieted everything down and gone on with her business.
We need another insider to tell us what is really going on here.
>We spend so much of our tax dollars on the school system but I don’t think the BOE has shown fiscal responsibility.
While money is being thrown left and right on various consultants, unproven math programs, unlimited specialists, and PR…our essential services like garbage pickup, ambulance service, water service, etc are being affected.
>”Andrew” and “Sue” seem not to realize that what goes around comes around.
>Where do the “teacher training” dollars come from? Our district or from the receiving college?
Who is footing the bill.
Teacher training income was the same reason we ended up with open circle, a program that teachers kids to rat on each other without naming names, even if everyone knows whom that child is talking about.
>That Ridgewood Views blog is a lot like “Open Circle”…it’s not a personal attack if you don’t name the person.
>I find it interesting that The Ridgewood Views made no mention of
– travell survey results
– terc 2 purchse for the district
– Regina Botsford denial that the calculus book is a reform book (yeah, and I have ocean front property for you in Kansas)
– our BOE members happy square table discussion on being proficient
actually, its not interesting … its very telling
>PJ love the blog wish you would have clued in some of your old friends ,have you found out who writes for the flog ? I cant believe the Ridgewood snooze and the BOE are so obviously in cohots with that flogy…looks like “math Gate” to me anyway tell James Rose and Dan the Man that Saddle River Joe and Garry are here to help out …ya know waht I mean
>There’s a substantial difference between a blogger and a commenter.
The blogger, who owns the blog, has control over all content. The commenter has little control, not even over whether his or her own comment will be published.
It is too difficult for readers to discern intent if the blogger is cloaked, and a hidden blogger can manipulate his blog to be anything he or she wants.
Therefore, transparency on the part of the blogger is required by reasonable standards of ethics. Transparency on the part of the commenter is not necessary.
Sue and Andrew are now backed into a corner because if they do have an obvious bias and are somehow connected to the BOE, they can never reveal themselves.
Yet experience tells us that bloggers are always eventually found out. I imagine they should be shaking in their boots as they come to understand this fact.
Unless of course they realize that the BOE is already done for, and that would mean it doesn’t matter anymore. Hey, it’s a party.
>> the BOE is already done for
What does that mean?
Is someone staging a Cottage Place coup d’etat or something?
>LOL. No. It’s just that they look a bit tainted these days.
>There is a difference between a moderator and an anonymous post.
The moderator is like the editor of a newspaper and should be like PJ, you know who he is and where his loyalties lie.
We know the editor of the Ridgewood News, whether we like them or not.
The posters on both blogs have the right to be anonymous, but the blog owners are unethical by hiding their identity.
They may want to consider taking that blog down before they are found out.
>Whoever is giving them legal advice must not be a lawyer…the case protects the posters, but the court knew the host was Infospace.
Did they read the District Court opinion before they cited it?
>Their legal advice is coming from a two-bit lawyer who used to sit on the boe and pretend to be the board attorney. He is known for misreading legal opinions.
>Is this lawyer and former BOE person the one who posted a very negative and nasty ad on a villager a few years ago? That ad was published in the Ridgewood News.
>When that former boe president/lawyer purchased the newspaper ad trashing a villager, residents thought he had finally gone off the deep end and beyond. Fellow board members and school administrators distanced themselves from him. The superintendent’s office was flooded with phone calls from residents outraged by his latest antics. It was clear to many that he was a ticking time bomb.
And yet to this day, the Ridgewood News continues to quote him as a reliable source. Whether you’re listening to his rants or reading their rubbish … neither are credible.
>That person who was a board member and ran the Ad in the Ridgewood News about a resident is a sick, sick individual. He can’t seem to get past his failures and spends his time railing against those who stood up to his bullying.
Maybe we should just leave him alone and he will go away somewhere far, far away. Whether in body or mind, he’s going, going, gone.
>Back to Sheila’s comment in the Ridgewood News…
“So I think that when we’re trying to look and see how does Ridgewood do, it should be in comparison to how we do in relation to other schools with the same DFG”, Brogran said. “That is a valid comparison”, she said, looking at Ridgewood schools in comparison to distrcits in the same socioeconomic group (District Factor Group J).”
So if we are below towns with less money in the budget, that doesn’t matter? What is she thinking?
>From Ridgewood News Article…
“Brogran pointed out that Somerville 4th graders were 1 out of 31 schools to achieve a 100% passing rate on the NJASK test last year, yet were ranked 10. In addition, Hawes ranked 34 with a 98.9% passing rate, Willard ranked 35 with 98.8% passing and Ridge ranked 36 with 98.8% passing.
Meanwhile, Travell ranked 163 with a 95.3% passing rate and Orchard ranked 231 with 94.2% passing rate . “So this is not a ranking,” she said. Rather, she said, it seems more like a listing because all of the schools with the same scores were then ranked according to the number of students that took the test.”
So the 4 schools without TERC were in the top 100 and the 2 that didn’t make the top 100 used TERC.
That’s an excellent reason to buy TERC2.
>“I really can’t tell you whether TERC is the best or Everyday Math or Addison Wesley.” said Board Member Shelia Brogan.
So why did we buy TERC?
>Well-to-do districts aren’t SUPPOSED to do better than other schools. That wouldn’t be fair.
Instead, we must all have equal access to the same quality education.
So let’s all play fair, and dumb down our schools in Ridgewood so we appear to close the equity gap.
It’s the politically correct thing to do.
Hey…who wants to start a charter school? Anybody game? All this political correctness is making me wretch.
>The more these BOE members talk, the more they show us how f*&^ing stupid they are.
It’s getting too embarrassing.
They need to shut up–there is a chance people will interpret their silence as something other than stupidity.
I’m sure everyone thinks we are village idiots for electing them, but only about 2000 people voted them in.
The rest of us are INNOCENT.
>Has anyone seen this?
In it, a blogger offers up some actual professional development course descriptions as an example of the kind of dreck the educrats are trying to teach our teachers to pass along to our kids.
Here’s an excerpt: “Tracking, biased testing, and other practices that deny access to some students are eliminated. The emphasis on grades, status, test scores, and winning is replaced with an emphasis on cooperation and concern for the common good. Those involved in this democratic project also work toward the elimination of inequities in the broader community as well as in the school.”
Isn’t it time we demand that our ed schools and professional development courses return to training teachers in the basics? It seems we’ve gotten way off track here.
>I read the article about the purchase of TERC 2 in yesterday’s paper. The school district would never get away with putting TERC in Willard or Ridge because the parents would come out in droves to complain. They knew what they were doing when they chose Travell and Orchard as TERC schools.
>The education establishment has sunk into the morass of left wing ideology. They are lost without a compass and a flashlight. That is why they appear so stupid; because they are ideologically driven.
The only hope is to EMPTY ALL THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BY LETTING PARENTS HAVE EDUCATION VOUCHERS.
No more pompous, arrogant board of eds to mess with our children.
>Please someone who went to the CMP 2 presentations last year tell us what’s good about CMP 2.
I have issues with TERC, but is CMP 2 any better? I would think that simply because it’s in the hands of licensed math teachers, it must be somewhat better.
I’m entirely open to the possibility that it’s good for our middle schoolers who are serious about math, but I’m sure not convinced of it. I’m all ears!
By the way, I’m not looking for educrat rhetoric. I’m looking for a reasoned look at CMP 2 for what might be good about it. I’m especially interested in positive comments coming from a parent of a serious math student.
I’ve never been able to get such information out of anybody. It seems like the parents who like reform math are all emotional, but not articulate. Someone articulate out there? Thank you.
>5:54AM
These were some of the initial complaints about CMP 1.
It didn’t cover fractions correctly and ignores more differcult denominators, such as 7. It teaches fractions in an odd way, with a clock fact, so kids don’t get the whole reducing to the lowest common denominator thing, which will play into algebraic eqautions.
It also glosses over the “order of operations”. That’s the “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” anagram which says when working on complex equations you do things in this order – “Parentsis, Exponentials, Multiplication, Division, Addition and then Subtraction.”
This is so key to algebra and to business. If you don’t get the order of operations down, you can get some very wrong answers.
Unfortunately, CMP2 is so new that there are no reviews yet.
But I would think they haven’t fixed these issues if they believe the clock face method is the way to teach fractions.
>Forgive my ignorance, but don’t they come into middle school already understanding fractions and order of operations?
>In 5th grade, it’s a general understanding of fractions, and addition of fractions, but no mulitplication or division until middle school. (And oddly no 7ths or 9ths are taught.)
From the TERC descriptions available online.
Students represent common fractions (3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 8ths) on10-by-10 grids; identify equivalent fractions and percents.
Students partition paper strips into halves, thirds, fourths, and sixths; find equivalencies; compare fractions of different denominators; use the fraction strips to demonstrate equivalent fractions and addition of fractions.
Students represent fractions as rotation around a circle; add fractions.
Students play various fraction games in which they find equivalent fractions and percents, order and add fractions.
>One more comment on TERC fractions…just addition and subtraction of fractions…here’s how they teach it.
Consider the “Sample of Ads Investigation,” at the end of the TERC fifth grade. Students are given a 48-page newspaper and a supply of “Recording Strips” that are premarked with “familiar fractions,” such as 1/4 and 2/3. They begin by deciding to sample one-third of the 48 pages. After using a calculator to divide 48 by 3, they select 16 sample pages and use eyeball estimation to guess the fraction of ads found on each sample page. Then, using one 3-inch “Recording Strip” for each sample page, students color the fraction of ads, cut out the colored portions, and tape them onto a 48-inch length of adding machine tape, “starting from one end of the tape and putting the pieces right next to each other.” Students then estimate the fraction of ads for the full 16-page sample by folding the 48-inch strip to estimate the fraction corresponding to the 16 colored-in pieces.
Why not add the 16 fractions and then divide the sum by 16? TERC students never learn about dividing fractions, and they never learn general methods for adding fractions. They do learn a hands-on method for adding two proper fractions with denominators less than 7, but this paper-folding method doesn’t work if the denominator of the sum fraction isn’t also less than 7.
>From the Ridgewood Public Schools website, Math Information for Parents, 6th Grade Outline…
“Understand and apply the standard algebraic order of operations for the four basic operations, including appropriate use of parentheses.”
No mention of exponentials although I am sure that was an oversight.
>so despite never ending increases in teachers salaries and benefits, our children are lagging.. perhaps that indicates that ‘real teaching’ isnt taking place and someone is simply regurgitating a curriculm that is out of place. sounds like the taxpayers are getting the shaft and the kids are the real losers on this one…how come the teachers union bigmouth isnt sounding off on this one?
>”Way to go math moms.”
Thank you.
>how come the teachers union bigmouth isnt sounding off on this one?
ever heard “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”
leave the teachers out of it … they are in the middle (like our children)
and will be made victims by the administration for anything other than obedience (courtesy of NCLB and highly qualified status …)
>leave the boe out of it
leave the administration out of it
now…leave the teachers out of it
seems we parents are the only ones who will speak up for our kids.
what does that make the school trustees, administrators and teachers?
>it is our government. we can either rule over them or let them rule over us.
so far, they have ruled over us while using our money to do so.
we’ll see how long it takes before people decide they have had enough.
>Not so fast, WTLF, there is indeed an “inner circle.” And the “secret handshake” is uncritical support of any budget.
How could you be so naive about Lenhard and Vallerini? Did you think BOE members didn’t know them? Did you think they had not already proved to BOE members that they would prove no real threat to the status quo?
Lenhard uncritically supported the BOE for years. She never saw a budget she didn’t like…in fact, she has even led the ABC group’s drives to marshall yes votes on budgets. At League of Women Voters debates, she pinned down candidates, asking them how they would vote on the budget. Of course, she made sure this question was not asked when SHE ran. For her years of service to the BOE in supporting every budget, even the mean-spirited one proposed in 2004, she was rewarded with a BOE seat.
As for Vallerini, he had worked with the Youth Council, with access to Federated (also an insiders club). As a card-carrying union member, he was a favorite with the teachers union, which sent a letter to at least one candidate, saying that it could not endorse any candidate who did not vote yes on the 2004/2005 budget.
>All you teachers with tenure show a united front on this math. I can understand the new teachers keeping their mouths shut. Help us out here.
>It’s mostly the new, untenured teachers that are schooled in these methods of teaching math, and they may not even know another way.
It’s the older teachers who can get a better perspective, but at least in Travell school, the younger teachers seem to be the ones given the reigns to make changes, while the tenured teachers are made to look “outdated” if they speak their minds.
Any of the older teachers who become gung-ho about this math may be doing so as a means of brown-nosing. The rest go silent.
Where are the critical thinkers in all this? Teachers are given too many constraints to be able to exercise their critical thinking in our kids’ favor.