>Dr. Brennan will be discussing and updating the K-8 MATH RESPONSIVENESS PLAN at this Monday’s BOE meeting. In addition, Dr. Beth Fisher-Yoshida, facilitator, will provide an update to the Board on the progress of this same plan. All interested parties should plan on attending and speak during public comment. The more voices heard, the better!
>The Fly is buzzing….
24 thoughts on “>The Fly is buzzing….”
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>Never before in perhaps the history of Ridgewood have taxpayers had this much power over what happens in their school.
Think about it:
1. The administration knows there’s a big problem. They know they can’t squash it like they were able to do in the past.
2. The superintendent has nothing to defend or protect, as he is new and not staying.
3. This is election year for the board.
4. The hiring of a facilitator is the most blatant admission that there are problems that need addressing. They can’t gloss over anything.
5. The interim is a practical guy. He doesn’t appear to subscribe to any extreme isms.
Therefore, get ye to the board meeting. Go before the microphone. Say what you’ve been thinking. Ask questions. Keep them accountable. Tell them your vision for our district. Tell them why the math isn’t working.
If even the possiblity exists of having an effect, then let’s not have any regrets later.
Oh, and those of us who will be the most effective of all are the ones the board hasn’t heard from yet. So, ALL of us are needed.
>There’s only one response that will work: DUMP TERC; forgo discovery science and anything NSF funded or created in the future.
TEACH the children.
Where do I send my bill for this terrific advice?
>I just reviewed the Math Responsiveness Plan.
Let’s just say that the references to “stakeholders” and “areas of strength” are troubling for these reasons:
The only stakeholders are PARENTS and TAXPAYERS; administrators and teachers are NOT stakeholders.
There are NO areas of “strength” in a reformed math curriculum, NONE. Maybe, it improves one’s artistic and linguistic abilities, but we can achieve that in ART and in ENGLISH.
It should be for math and it does that poorly.
Memo to B&I. The buck stops with the parent. So far, you are failing miserably at your jobs.
>After reading the plan, I am very disappointed of its content or lack there of. It says nothing more than what has been said all along. “Let’s find out what is the problem…”
Too many people are learning about how bad TERC and CMP2 really are.
The district should focus on resolving this issue to meet the needs of the majority instead providing mere lip service at the tax payers expense.
Please Board members and district supervisors… wake up and start doing your jobs!!!!
>yes the plan is to waste as much of your time as possible so in the end you give up and they turn your kids in to dumb dumbs
>Is it true that Dr. Arilotta took a Superintendent’s job in Hanover, NJ?
>Yes, the lucky folks in Hanover will be graced with his warmth, integrity, openness, genuineness, self-confidence, truthfulness, love and understanding of kids with behavior issues, profound understanding of disability law, superior intellect, and high regard for scholarly pursuits.
ROFL. Can’t say it with a straight face.
Here’s the article.
>SAD AND TRUE!! Those poor children!
http://www.dailyrecord.com – Morris County – Hanover Park Regional has new superintendent
>The plan on the RPS website is lacking to say the least…they are still defending this program which is not used in the 4 other schools in the district.
Give it to Willard and Ridge and let’s see how that well that goes over…
>Will public school entities ever learn?
This is not a plan. It is a thin disguise for wasting everyone’s time and money.
Do they think we are idiots out here?
Would such a “plan” ever work at anyone’s place of business?
They would first fire the idiot that came up with it.
>When is a plan not a plan?
When it’s prepared by the ridgewood school board.
>I wonder how long it will take Dr. Brennan to realize that our boe members and administrators are not the sharpest tools in the shed? Once he realizes it, what can he do about it?
>I think Brennan already knows 8:05. That’s why this job is so difficult. One also has to appease and educate an idiot board. Now, however, we have an idiot boe president. That certainly makes it even harder.
Fred knew how to handle them. Perhaps, Brennan will learn from his counsel.
>I hope Brennan does not act like the plan is substantive. He will lose the good will he has, so far, received.
>Sadly, I won’t be able to make this meeting tonite. If anyone on this board is going, could you please ask DR. Brennan if parents can request that the alternative materials purchased be used instead of TERC in the classroom. I read that the BOE purchased Addison Wessley as a traditional math
alternative to TERC.
Thanks everybody and good luck! (DUMP TERC)
>Here is how Botsford described math in the “what’s new” story for back-to-school running today in the Bergen Record. Notice the words reform math is absent, but supposedly the “new core instructional math course” will prepare students for 8th grade Algebra. Oh really Regina. Nice try.
“Ridgewood
A new honors course will be added to the calculus classes at the high school, said Regina Lemerich Botsford, the assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment. The course will complement Advanced Placement calculus AB, calculus C and calculus D.
Students taking a new senior yearbook course at the high school will learn the publication process, including photography, copywriting, art, layout, finance, advertising and computer-assisted design, Botsford said. A state-of-the-art language lab is also set to open at the high school.
The Ridgewood Academy for Health Professionals is expanding. About 120 students in Grades 10, 11 and 12 will be mentored by doctors, hospital staff and faculty in partnership with The Valley Hospital and Bergen Community College.
The George Washington and Benjamin Franklin middle schools are offering two new courses: world history for Grade 8 and pre-algebra for Grade 7, Botsford said. The math course is a continuation of the new core instructional program implemented last year in Grade 6. It’s designed to prepare students for eighth-grade algebra, Botsford said.”
>Dr. Brennen seemed reasonable last night.
One negative is that he mentioned Orchard’s test scores as being wonderful, which must be the 5th grade scores, which are not 100%TERC kids. This year 3rd grade scores will be the total TERC kids.
This could give the impression that TERC would be great for the whole town.
However, Orchard supplements so much, the Principal was telling parents last year he wasn’t even using TERC…
I think Brennen will kill TERC if he hears from enough parents. People should really continue to email him…he seems to be listening.
>I agree 8:10. He seems to be listening. He is not beholden to Pearson and did not graduate from Montclair or Rutgers, home of left leaning education experiments.
He seems to want what’s best for the students — not just in the present, but for their futures.
If the BOE could only think beyond their square table, they would get it too.
It’s not career killing to be weak at math in 3rd, 4th or 5th grade. But after that, options for higher study become more and more limited as their weak stills make higher math a Herculean task.
Even Hercules got tired.
>With regard to what is happening at Orchard. This anecdote may provide an answer:
Remember the photo of a terc homework assignment that accompanied the NY Times article on reform math in Ridgewood, and the student got the wrong answer? That was my elementary school student, who, when I asked her to solve the problem, got the right answer in under 2 minutes using a standard algorithm. The TERC way that was originally used to solve the problem (incorrectly) must have taken 10 minutes.
Since my student knew the algorithm perfectly, I am sensing that TERC at Orchard must be for “show and tell.” Bob is a mathematician and I would speculate that he makes sure his teachers teach the math.
>Bob is not a “Mathematician”…he doesn’t have a Phd in Mathematics…
He has tried to instruct his teachers, but some of them get it and other don’t. Plus, I don’t think Bob Muller should be creating the curriculum for the school.
Curriculum companies such as Houghton-Mifflin and Saxon spend millions of dollars to make a great curriculum, why does he choose to buy TERC and put in old AW and HM stuff where he thinks it is appropriate? What if he or the teacher forgets the insert? Your kid just doesn’t learn that topic, especially if it’s not on the NJASK….
>Last night at the Board of Ed meeting Dr. Brennan pointed out that while it’s true kids could learn to multiply with no understanding, which of course isn’t good, it’s also possible for kids to identify four groups of four, and never know it means sixteen.
This and other comments from last night’s Board of Ed meeting can be found here:
Everybody Waits and other interesting comments
>” kids could learn to multiply with no understanding, which of course isn’t good”
I disagree with this…you can learn a lot of things in the elementary school years that you don’t need to have a “deep” understanding of until later in life.
It should be enough for an eight year old to know his times tables without having to know their “meaning”. Deep understanding can come later.
When the study the Civil War they don’t learn all the political nuances until High School. They read the Cricket in Times Square rather than King Lear. Why do they need DEEP mathematical thinking in the 3rd grade?
>What’s all the hoopla about kids “understanding” math in grammar school? K8 is not about understanding anything. K8 is about competent teachers using fundamentally sound curriculum material to begin to lay the building blocks of learning. It’s like saying that we have to “know” and “understand” each brick that goes into the foundation of a building. If the bricks are placed and prepared in an intelligent manner, the building will begin to take shape. It is the educator’s job to “understand” the material, not the child’s. It is the mastercraftsman that “understands” the entire building and why we do what we have to do. The apprentice doesn’t fully understand and will only understand after years of practice.
>The reason we have something so inadequate as terc being promulgated in the modern world is because, sadly, there aren’t enough k-8 teachers who actually know elementary math. That said, Ridgewood should be in the position to get some of the few who qualify. For what we pay, we should settle for no less.