Duncan, I am no expert on what is going on with math in California. They had the new math, and then as I understand it the conservatives used their political influence to squelch it. Then there was the second program, a combination of old and new math. Then somehow math professors at Stanford got involved in an advisory way, and there is a study of some sort, but I do not remember the conclusions.
California used to have an excellent public school system, the best in America as I recall. Then Proposition 13 was passed by some tax rebels, and the result is that the tax base for funding education was reduced dramatically. Another result is that people living side by side, in houses worth the same amount, pay stunningly different property taxes. Spending in California schools, per pupil, is next to last, with only Mississippi below it. Thirty percent of California pupils fall below the poverty line, as well, which is a much larger percentage than before, when our achievement test scores were better.
Your typical California classroom today may have broken windows, leaking ceilings, inadequate heat, and bathrooms that are worse than those in the Third World. Not only do a lot of the children come to school hungry because they are poor, but as I mentioned, because California has a lot more immigrants from Mexico and everywhere else than most states, teachers have children speaking ten or twelve languages in the same room. So getting everyone's attention is very hard, and many children need special help that is not available.
In the San Francisco schools, where I live, a two-tier system has developed of necessity, although it seems extremely unfair. At the schools in middle-class neighborhoods, and the magnet schools, where most well-educated parents try to get their children admitted, parents are in the classrooms constantly. At my daughter's school many of the parents are teachers taking time off to rear their children, and so they participate teaching art, music, crafts--all the "extras". There is a fund-raising run, where each child has relatives and neighbors contributing a set amount based on the child's participation and stamina, and a huge rummage sale, and a picnic with a raffle and a silent auction. I think the amount raised by parents each year to supplement what the district cannot provide approaches $100,000.
Unfortunately, at schools where most of the children are poor, and whose parents don't understand how important their involvement is, or whose lives are so chaotic and necessity based that they do not have the energy to participate, the children are getting a totally different educational experience. These schools have abysmal test scores. I believe it is in the larger interest of the society to stop this dysfunction to the extent that it can with education, but little is being done.
My daughter's tiny school has two classes in each grade, and is an all honors school. She has had plenty of individualized attention, and has always been a year ahead of the normal math curriculum. Even though math is not her subject--she loves art and wants to be a writer at the moment--she does math willingly and seems fairly interested in it. I like it that she can solve problems in her head when we are driving in the car, or are otherwise without paper and pencils, because she has been taught several techniques and tricks to do this. I have very seldom used all the geometry and algebra I spent years learning, and math was presented in a very boring fashion, with all those drills. I think any imaginative way to teach math, so that children are actually taught to think creatively to solve problems, is positive.
Incidentally, there is significant research which indicates that math sufficiency is directly related to exposure to music in earlier childhood. Children who are interested in art, and have had lots of art, also seem to do much better academically than children who have not. I think it is a huge mistake to take these subjects out of the curriculum, and that children brought up learning just the "3-R's" tend to wither and die intellectually from lack of a well-rounded learning experience. I think it would be more productive to figure out how to teach basic skills well, and supplement them with the more cultural parts of the educational experience which keep children interested, and make life rich, than to simply go back to the past. |
