Everyday Math Has its Detractors
July 13, 2000
by Jennifer C. Neubauer
Here's a math quiz for all Lake Forest/Lake Bluff parents who read last week's glowing report in The Lake Forester on the highly touted Everyday Mathematics curriculum.
1. In 1999, over 200 professional mathematicians from universities and colleges across the country, from Princeton to Stanford and other noteworthy people in the education and scientific fields (including a Nobel Prize laureate and the former Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) urged the U.S. Department of Education to withdraw its earlier endorsement of Everyday Mathematics as a "promising" mathematics curricula. These 200 professionals noted that the endorsement panel did not include any active research mathematicians and
noted further the plethora of criticism of Everyday Math and other so-called "new-new-math" programs by "credible" mathematics scholars. These 200 professionals included the Chairman of the Mathematics Department at the University of Chicago-where Everyday learning Corporation alleges it developed Everyday Math.
True or False?
2. Cal State Mathematics Professor David Stein, evaluating Everyday Mathematics k-6 program at the request of the California State Board of Education wrote, in 1999: "I strongly recommend against the adoption of Everyday Mathematics either as a basic or partial program for any grade ranging from k-6." He further noted that "Everyday Mathematics curriculum makes clear its hostility to proficiency in arithmetic through the standard algorithms, its opposition to drill and practice, and its support for reliance on calculators in arithmetic."
True or False?
3. In 1999, the California State Board of Education dropped Everyday Mathematics from its approved text book list due to California parents' over ten year campaign against it and other "new-new-math" curricula because of declining test scores and because of professional mathematicians' criticisms of the program.
True or False?
4. The not-for-profit Education Connection of Texas sponsored a Mathematics Program Review of several k-8 mathematic curricula. Everyday Mathematics was considered "too inadequate to be recommended" for its failure to provide "a consistent basis of support even for the modest achievement levels." By 1999, less than 5 percent of Texas school districts were using "new-new-math curricula like Everyday Math.
True or False?
5. At the web site www.mathematicallycorrect.com, parents and school board officials charged with protecting our children from educational chicanery can learn even more about the abysmal failure of programs like Everyday Mathematics to prepare our children for world-class mathematics achievement and global mathematic competition. They can learn that if we continue to use programs like it, US children will continue to rank near the bottom of the list of industrialized nations in mathematics performance.
True or False?
6. Extra Credit Question: District 67 and 65 officials will reexamine their ill-considered decision to implement Everyday Math just as the two of the largest states in the union have dumped it because of its long-term failure. Lake Forest and Lake Bluff parents will stand up and declare in one voice that the fashionable "new-new-math curricula" is just another "old-old-mistake" exalting novelty over the tried and true while ensuring math mediocrity , not excellence in high school, college and beyond.
True or False?
Answer: Questions 1-5 are True. Question 6 is what you make it.
Jennifer C. Neubauer.
This letter to the editor was printed in The Lake Forester, a Pioneer Press publication.