FailingAlgebraInLosAngeles < Kitchen

31 Jan 2006 - 12:51

failing algebra in Los Angeles

Ben Calvin posted a link and excerpts from a four-part Los Angeles Times series on LA Unified high schools.

The Photo Gallery accompanying the story on algebra is incredible. Everyone should take a look.

caption:
Tina Norwood, who is failling algebra for the third time, writes her boyfriend's name
on her hand during class. "Still don't get it, not gonna get it," she wrote on a test paper.
She says math has mystified her since she first saw fractions in elementary school.

how not to remediate math

Each morning, when Gabriela Ocampo looked up at the chalkboard in her ninth-grade algebra class, her spirits sank.
There she saw a mysterious language of polynomials and slope intercepts that looked about as familiar as hieroglyphics.
She knew she would face another day of confusion, another day of pretending to follow along. She could hardly do long division, let alone solve for x.
"I felt like, 'Oh, my God, what am I going to do?' " she recalled.
Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again — six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.
Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.
Her story might be just a footnote to the Class of 2005 except that hundreds of her classmates, along with thousands of others across the district, also failed algebra.
Of all the obstacles to graduation, algebra was the most daunting.

two words:

back up

This girl, obviously, is not ready to do algebra.

LA Unified needs to put Anne Dwyer on an airplane, fly her out to Van Nuys, sit her down with Gabriela, have her diagnose the problem, and then have Gabriela start back re-learning elementary mathematics at the point just prior to the point where she went off tracks. Which, in her case, sounds like 2nd or 3rd grade.

Gabriela needs to start with math she can do, and build momentum going into the math she can't do.

KUMON does this; Engelmann does this; I instinctively did this myself when I decided to re-learn elementary mathematics.

I hadn't done any math to speak of in 30 years, and it just made sense that, instead of picking up at the point where I left off, I ought to back up and start some place before the point I left off.

If I can figure this out, LA Unified ought to be able to figure it out, too.

update: LA Unified has figured it out

The only reason these schools aren't doing what they should be doing is....they're just not doing it.

I don't understand bureaucracy & the kind of management failure one sees in bureaucracies. Ed was saying, yesterday, that bureaucracies are designed to diffuse responsibility, which means, of course, that by the same token no one can simply seize responsibility and say: These kids are going back to 3rd grade math. Instead, everyone just keeps taking algebra and failing algebra and then retaking algebra and refailing algebra and the years go by.

Still, some schools are doing better than others:

Cleveland High, four miles from Birmingham, places ninth- and 10th-graders who get a D or F in algebra into semester-long classes that focus on sixth- and seventh-grade material and pre-algebra. Students then return to standard algebra classes.
Eighteen percent of Cleveland's 10th-graders were proficient in algebra on state tests last spring, compared with 8% at Birmingham and 3% districtwide.

That's progress. I suspect Cleveland High hasn't backed the kids up far enough - either that, and/or the kids haven't had enough time for the newly-learned early skills to gel.

To learn math you need three things, IMO:

good teachers

good textbooks

time

These Cleveland High kids sound like they've probably had some decent remedial teaching and textbooks. What they haven't had is time.

I'm sure their knowledge is still too inflexible to allow them to move on to algebra.

update: James Milgram on time

It's worth re-reading James Milgram's comments on the time even very bright and talented students need for math knowledge to gel:

What happens when you take long division out of the curriculum? Unfortunately, from personal and recent experience at Stanford, I can tell you exactly what happens. What I'm referring to here is the experience of my students in a differential equations class in the fall of 1998. The students in that course were the last students at Stanford taught using the Harvard calculus. And I had a very difficult time teaching them the usual content of the differential equations course because they could not handle basic polynomial manipulations. Consequently, it was impossible for us to get to the depth needed in both the subjects of Laplace transforms and eigenvalue methods required and expected by the engineering school.
But what made things worse was that the students knew full well what had happened to them and why, and in a sense they were desperate. They were off schedule in 4th and 3rd years, taking differential equations because they were having severe difficulties in their engineering courses. It was a disaster. Moreover, it was very difficult for them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. It seems to take a considerable amount of time for the requisite skills to develop.

Milgram is a professor at Stanford.

He's not talking about Latino kids struggling with poor math teaching and lousy textbooks in Van Nuys.

He's talking about Stanford University undergraduates who are good enough at math to be taking engineering courses.

If Stanford engineering students can't cram math, nobody can.

key words: gapology
James Milgram on long division & time
can you cram math: learning a year of math in 2 months
overlearning
remediating Los Angeles algebra students
Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise by Daniel Willingham
Matt Goff & Susan S on remediating gaps
Anne Dwyer on diagnosing gaps & request for 'gap' stories
formative assessment and Richard Nixon
Terminator

letter to the LA Times

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

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If I can figure this out, LA Unified ought to be able to figure it out, too.

You would think. But this assumes they're thinking rationally and not blinded by idealogy.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

The problem is not high school. The goal is not remediation. (For her, it is, however.) The problem is that K-8 schools(especially K-6) are in La La Land. They are incompetent and unable, knowledge and philosophy-wise, to teach math. The goal is not to fix high school. The goal is not to get kids through algebra in high school. The goal is to have a proper K-8 math curriculum that leads to algebra in 8th or maybe 9th grade. This is not difficult. Math is cumulative, but it is not difficult. K-8 schools have a very difficult time with the concepts of cumulative and mastery.

"This girl, obviously, is not ready to do algebra."

Of course, but the K-8 schools failed her miserably. It's not a matter of poor math class placement. It's allowing her to go on to the next grade without knowing long division or how to manipulate fractions. Maybe, just maybe, you can get away with this in other subjects, but you cannot do this in math.

Our (MathLand, CMP and half-year of algebra-lite) K-8 schools did a self-analysis of how our kids are doing in high school. They said that they "made the grade." They did admit that some kids were struggling in math, but said that they would do better if they were placed in a math class for kids struggling in math. Their apparent goal for K-8 success is whether or not the kids are flunking their high school courses. If they are, the solution is to put them into easier courses. Problem solved.

High school teachers know the problems, but with the huge curriculum wall between K-8 and high school, they can't do anything but advise. And, the only problem the high school teachers will admit to are that the students are not quite prepared for the level of work and the "no re-dos". They will not admit (publically) that there are any curriculum gaps or deficiencies in the lower schools' curricula. Speaking of which, the chair of our high school math department never sent me the syllabi for the College Prep (honors and AP) math track. Perhaps it's because I mentioned to her that I wanted to know what material I had to supplement to make sure my son was perpared for the top track.

The high school math chair got a lot of kudos for developing a remedial-style math course for in-coming freshmen. It apparently works well if the goal is to get kids to pass algebra by the time they finish high school. The apparent problem is that many people think that algebra is hard and that you have to have some sort of special brain to be able to do it. The real problem is that K-8 schools do not have a clue.

-- SteveH - 31 Jan 2006

The high school math chair got a lot of kudos for developing a remedial-style math course for in-coming freshmen.

I'm wondering why a school needs to develop a remedial math curriculum in the first place. Isn't the need for a remedial curriculum a large blinking neon sign saying your standard curriculum is rotten in the first place? The only kids who should be in remediation are transferees.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

It apparently works well if the goal is to get kids to pass algebra by the time they finish high school.

I'm beginning to believe that a strong foundation in algebra with some geometry and basic trig is all many students need at the high school level. If this prepares them for College level Calc, they've been sufficiently prepared. Most kids will never have a need for hardcore calculus after that class is over unless they are prone to filling up buckets of water with holes in them.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

The apparent problem is that many people think that algebra is hard and that you have to have some sort of special brain to be able to do it.

You do need a special brain to so algebra. One that has been conditioned over the past six to eight years mastering elementary math.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

The real problem is that K-8 schools do not have a clue.

Now we're getting closer to the root of the problem.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

Speaking of "re-dos". I didn't know it was such a big problem. I distinctly remember when I was growing up that everything had to be in on time. The only time re-dos or re-tests were given were when everyone did poorly. Perhaps the teacher realized that something was wrong. Also, it was very rare to have any sort of extra credit work.

However, I've noticed that my son regularly gets 110s and 120s on his (easy) tests. He got a 108 on his easy science test last week, but he said that they are going to have a make-up test this week and that the teacher will use the higher of the two marks. Apparently, a number of kids got 50's and 60's. This is a private school. The material is not difficult. We're talking Everyday Math. My wife looked at his EM math homelink homework last night and said: "This is it?" My fourth grade son is still at an age where it is difficult to get a clear picture about what is going on, but he says that many students don't study.

With 45 minutes a day for math, even if kids never do anything at home, why are the results so bad? Can you imagine 45 minutes a day of Kumon? Singapore Math? Saxon? Even if parents don't care one bit (schools shouldn't assume that they do), shouldn't the results be better? I would love to be a fly on the wall. I would really love to know what is going on (or not).

My son had a social studies test last week. Before the test, the teacher used a full class period to have them break into groups and study for the test. I asked him what the teacher was doing? He said she was working on her computer. I was dumfounded. I asked him who was in his group and whether they studied. He said that they really didn't study. Of course. What do you expect from 4th graders. Apparently, the teacher didn't see a need to help them learn how to study.

-- SteveH - 31 Jan 2006

The Photo Gallery accompanying the story on algebra is incredible. ...

This girl, obviously, is not ready to do algebra.

Look closer. Almost none of the kids in this photo are paying attention or ready to learn algebra

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

"I'm beginning to believe that a strong foundation in algebra with some geometry and basic trig is all many students need at the high school level. If this prepares them for College level Calc, they've been sufficiently prepared."

I agree, but I don't believe one bit that outside of the college prep math track, high schools know anything about "strong foundation". I see two problems. The first is that grades K-8 do an incompetent job of teaching math, even if they never get to algebra in 8th grade. The second is that if you cannot somehow (with outside help) start out in the top math track in high school, then it's all over. Perhaps some high schools work hard at remediation and get kids through the top level Algebra II course by graduation, but I expect that is rare.

-- SteveH - 31 Jan 2006

That girl is failing for the third time? Unless she is special ed, I just don't get it. Are her grades awful across the board? What is the school doing about it, I wonder?

I saw something attached to the article about math boot camp. Sounds like something this kid needs.

In general, like you all said, there seems to be a lack of awareness that the problem is K-8, and that some of these kids need to go back and deal with what they missed then.

-- SusanS - 31 Jan 2006

The goal is not to get kids through algebra in high school. The goal is to have a proper K-8 math curriculum that leads to algebra in 8th or maybe 9th grade.

Absolutely.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Look closer. Almost none of the kids in this photo are paying attention or ready to learn algebra

Absolutely.

This is a class for kids who flunked algebra 1.

If you've flunked algebra 1 - flat-out flunked - you're not ready for algebra 1.

Almost by definition.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Their apparent goal for K-8 success is whether or not the kids are flunking their high school courses.

That's horrifying.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

I remember Carolyn saying she re-took one of her college math courses by choice.

The only time you should be re-taking a math course is when you did OK & want to do better.

If you flunked outright, you need to back up.

I'm pretty sure.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Speaking of which, the chair of our high school math department never sent me the syllabi for the College Prep (honors and AP) math track

She needs to send that to you.

Today.

You need to just keep noodging her on an every-other-day basis until she does it.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Isn't the need for a remedial curriculum a large blinking neon sign saying your standard curriculum is rotten in the first place?

You would think.

The only kids who should be in remediation are transferees.

This is the thing that gets to me - one of the many.

The further I go along re-learning math myself, the easier it gets (I realize that will stop at some point, BUT I'd be STUNNED to discover that I find h.s. algebra difficult).

Even Christopher, who is in his Death March to Algebra, is actually keeping his head above water. He's not going to flunk this course, not even close. (Knock on wood.) He'll end up with a C or even a B, and he'll have some concepts reasonably well mastered.

AND THIS IS A COURSE THAT WOULD KILL THOSE KIDS IN VAN NUYS.

This material is not intrinsically difficult.

When your founding assumption is 'math is hard' you make terrible curricular & instructional decisions.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

I asked him what the teacher was doing? He said she was working on her computer. I was dumfounded. I asked him who was in his group and whether they studied. He said that they really didn't study. Of course. What do you expect from 4th graders. Apparently, the teacher didn't see a need to help them learn how to study.

This is a private school, right?

Time for a Team Meeting.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

I agree, but I don't believe one bit that outside of the college prep math track, high schools know anything about "strong foundation".

This is true. The non-college prep track should be almost identical to the college prep track with the exceptions that 1. some of the more advanced topics at the high school level can be eliminated in favor of more practice for the topics covered and 2. the pace is slower and more appropriate for these students to allow for more practice.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

I'm beginning to believe that a strong foundation in algebra with some geometry and basic trig is all many students need at the high school level. If this prepares them for College level Calc

I suspect that's true, not that I'm an expert.

The only reason I want Christopher to take AP calculus is that the 5% of American kids who take & pass AP calculus are the only kids who are competitive with their foreing peers in high-achieving countries on TIMSS.

Our high school may be good enough, though, that this consideration doesn't hold here.....

Don't know.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

If you've flunked algebra 1 - flat-out flunked - you're not ready for algebra 1.

Kids who are ready to take algebra rarely out-right flunk it unless it is taught poorly.

The kids who are out-right flunking alegra would also be outright flunking the material taught in the last few years of elementary math.

On day one of this class the students should be given a test that assesses how well they know how to do long division and manipulation of fractions and decimals. Most, if not all, of the kids would fail this test. The few that pass, if any, are ready to take algebra. The remainder who failed should be placed in a remedial elementary math class. In fact, you probably need a few levels of remedial math classes to accomodate all the remediation needed.

Engelmann has pointed out that kids transferring into a school teaching DI math in the fourth or fifth grade had almost a zero chance of placing into their grade level class. Once a student gets lost in a brutally cumulative subject like math further learning essentially grinds to a halt. They're done educationally speaking unless they get remediated.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

I see two problems. The first is that grades K-8 do an incompetent job of teaching math, even if they never get to algebra in 8th grade. The second is that if you cannot somehow (with outside help) start out in the top math track in high school, then it's all over.

Absolutely.

The non-college prep track should be almost identical to the college prep track with the exceptions that 1. some of the more advanced topics at the high school level can be eliminated in favor of more practice for the topics covered and 2. the pace is slower and more appropriate for these students to allow for more practice.

I agree.

As I say, the further I go, the easier I realize K-12 math is if you're being taught well AND you have sufficient practice to move to mastery & at least semi-flexible knowledge.

In math, there's no substitute for teaching AND practicing to mastery.

In every book Saxon has an 'exhortation' (I think they actually call it that) in which he tells students, 'math isn't difficult, it's different.'

I'll type it up at some point, and get it on the front page.

It's beautiful.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Kids who are ready to take algebra rarely out-right flunk it unless it is taught poorly.

right

of course

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

And he's talking about schools like this one, with populations like this one.

These kids almost certainly went off-track back in 3rd grade or earlier.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

This should be the appropraite plan for any kid with the cognative ability to learn calculus in a properly taught instructional sequence.

My point that a strong foundation in algebra is really all thatis needed is limited to the kids who may not have the cognitive ability in the first place to learn calculus in a reasonable period of time. Of course, the number of kids who have been properly prepared to take classes would be higher if the school had the proper instructional pipeline starting back in K, but that's a point that's been made in numerous other comment threads.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

As I say, the further I go, the easier I realize K-12 math is if you're being taught well AND you have sufficient practice to move to mastery & at least semi-flexible knowledge.

I bet that the amount of semi-flexible knowledge that a student can tolerate correlates highly with his IQ and working memory capacity. Smarter students can tolerate the most which is why they succeed in non-mastery taught courses. Bet I bet as you move down the food chain, kids with lesser abilities can tolerate less and less. All their knowledge must be mastered and flexible before they can learn new material at a reasonable pace. This is why only mastery learning programs have been successful with below-median kids.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

At Cal State Northridge, the largest supplier of new teachers to Los Angeles Unified, 35% of future elementary school instructors earned Ds or Fs in their first college-level math class last year.

Some of these students had already taken remedial classes that reviewed high school algebra and geometry.

"I give up. I'm not good at math," said sophomore Alexa Ganz, 19, who received a D in math last semester even after taking two remedial courses. "I think I've been more confused this semester than helped."

Ganz, who wants to teach third grade, thinks the required math courses are overkill. "I guarantee I won't need to know all this," she said....

I think you have to start with the K-8 instruction, who is teaching it, and how it's being taught.

Catherine, would you consider writing a letter to the LA Times about their article? Using some of the comment material from here? I think the paper should get some feedback on how their story has hit the mark......

-- BenCalvin - 31 Jan 2006

"This is a private school, right? Time for a Team Meeting."

The problem is that I don't really know what is going on. Do I go in there for a team meeting based only on my son's interpretation of events? How do I cite one incident when I really don't know the entire context?

To answer my own question, I would say the real problem is that there is no detailed, published curriculum. I don't know what they are teaching my son. If I knew, if I agreed with it, if I saw progress towards that goal, then these comments by my son wouldn't bother me one bit. (Well, maybe a bit.) Also, in math, I have a well-devloped idea of what should be covered. I don't have this same idea for other subjects.

I think I mentioned before that at the beginning of the year, I asked the social studies teacher about what they were covering, as in history. She said that in 4th grade they were covering geography and that in 6th grade they begin history. OK ... I guess so, well, I really don't know. Based on my knowledge of what they are doing in math, I don't trust them one bit in other subjects. All I have to go by are the Core Knowledge books and they are way behind by that standard.

-- SteveH - 31 Jan 2006

Eighteen percent of Cleveland's 10th-graders were proficient in algebra on state tests last spring, compared with 8% at Birmingham and 3% districtwide.

Sweet Fancy Moses that's ~~horrendous~~ ~~pathetic~~ embarrassing. But oh so typical.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

To answer my own question, I would say the real problem is that there is no detailed, published curriculum. I don't know what they are teaching my son.

Our school has the following in its mission statement:

"We affirm that parents are the primary educators of their children who work in partnership with the school in the development of the whole child."

I think parents should use this as their mission statement in whatever school their kids are enrolled in.

You should be able to get answers to all of your curriculum questions.

-- BenCalvin - 31 Jan 2006

oh, I see what you're saying

actually, I have a second & possibly more significant pragmatic reason for aiming Christopher towards AP calculus, which is that it appears to weigh heavily in college admissions

as far as I can tell - and take this with a major grain of salt - a kid headed towards non-math fields who shows up with AP calculus on his transcipt gets greeted as a freaking genius (judging by how I feel about such kids.....)

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Smarter students can tolerate the most which is why they succeed in non-mastery taught courses. Bet I bet as you move down the food chain, kids with lesser abilities can tolerate less and less. All their knowledge must be mastered and flexible before they can learn new material at a reasonable pace. This is why only mastery learning programs have been successful with below-median kids.

There's something like that going on.....

I keep thinking, too, that there's a huge memory element of some kind.

Ms. LaBella, Christopher's 4th grade teacher (I have a wonderful story about Ms. LaBella ignoring Christopher's reading placement & bumping him up...) told me something interesting.

We were talking about the Irvington math tracks, and she said that they always had a problem between 3rd & 4th grade.

In K-5, fourth grade is the 'hit-the-wall' grade.

Her perception was that kids who'd always been 'really good at math' suddenly couldn't do it, or had problems doing it - found it harder, etc.

She said that what distinguished these kids was fantastic memories. They soaked everything up, and they'd been coasting on pure memory ability.

They weren't really 'good' at math; they were just fantastic at remembering math.

Now that's an example of kids with good memories suddenly having trouble.....but I think there's something going on where kids with extra-good memories can get by with very inflexible knowledge.

If you have inflexible knowledge that you remember really, really well — maybe that's the 'mask.'

I DEFINITELY had that.

The math I did know, I KNEW. I knew it to mastery; I could do it in a flash.

My math knowledge was & is staggeringly fragmented.

But I could use whatever I had.

That much can probably get you through high school.

(This isn't very logical, but having been up since 6 am my brain is fogged...)

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

All I have to go by are the Core Knowledge books and they are way behind by that standard.

This is a private school; you're paying for this education; I would go in there with my Core Knowledge book and ask them what's going on.

If they have a different curriculum, fine.

Let them tell you what it is.

I know I sound hard-nosed, but at this point I am hard-nosed.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Catherine, would you consider writing a letter to the LA Times about their article? Using some of the comment material from here?

Hey!

Great idea!

hmmm......why don't you tell me which points we should make.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

"We affirm that parents are the primary educators of their children who work in partnership with the school in the development of the whole child."

I like that.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

In K-5, fourth grade is the 'hit-the-wall' grade.

Her perception was that kids who'd always been 'really good at math' suddenly couldn't do it, or had problems doing it - found it harder, etc.

She said that what distinguished these kids was fantastic memories. They soaked everything up, and they'd been coasting on pure memory ability.

I'm fairly certain the same thing happens in reading at about the same time. Once students start getting to books with expanded vocabularies, the kids who've been able to get by memorizing words can no longer keep up. Only the skilled decoders can now keep up.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

I'm fairly certain the same thing happens in reading at about the same time.

Yes, it's fourth grade.

Part of the problem there, I'm positive, is that suddenly the kids read books with multisyllabic words they can't sound out.

This is a great test: ask a 10 year old, a good reader, to read a multisyllabic nonsense word like NAMRAD.

They can't do it.

I was in a special ed meeting one day, where the subject of nonsense words came up.

The special ed folks were saying that a very young child could read them.

I said, 'Really?'

'He can read nonsense words?'

They all looked at me like I was crazy.

I asked if kids could read multisyllabic nonsense words, and at first they all said, 'Of course.'

But when I persisted, and told them Christopher - who was then in 5th grade & a good reader - could not read nonsense multisyllabic words, they realized they'd never even thought about it.

This is a concept that doesn't even seem to be taught.

There's a huge difference between sounding-out a one-syllable word and sounding-out a multisyllabic word.

Huge.

Also, I've forgotten which grade it is - fourth or fifth - but in one of these grades kids have their first experience of reading to learn, as opposed to learning to read. (I think this is in 5th.)

So that's another huge change.

Last but not least, I can't quite remember this factoid, but in 4th or 5th (I'm thinking 5th) for the first time they read texts that contain quite a large number of novel words.

And of course since they've never seen these words before, in a sense many of these words are multisyllabic nonsense words.

I'm not sure how many adults can read multisyllabic nonsense words. This may almost be an autistic-type talent.

I can do it easily, but I taught myself to read, I'm a semi-savant speller.....and I have autism genes to beat the band.

I noticed the other day that Ed doesn't read unfamiliar multisyllabic words all that well. He was reading something out loud to Christopher, and he tripped over a long word he didn't know.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Reminds me of French class.

I could quite competently read (out loud, in class) a passage of French with zero comprehension of most of the words.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 31 Jan 2006

"Part of the problem there, I'm positive, is that suddenly the kids read books with multisyllabic words they can't sound out."

Another big problem is lack of domain knowledge which the kids are not getting under the anti-knowledge progressive/constructivist regime. E.D. Hirsch has a lot to say about that. http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2003/AE_SPRNG.pdf

-- CharlesH - 31 Jan 2006

"There's a huge difference between sounding-out a one-syllable word and sounding-out a multisyllabic word."

My son is at the point that he's having problems with this. He's reading simple books fluently, and e can sound out syllables just fine in most cases, but he still doesn't see the syllable breaks in unfamiliar words. I think it may be time for some concentrated work on breaking words into syllables.

Now to explicitly remember all the different syllable-break rules that I've internalized.

8-/

-- DougSundseth - 31 Jan 2006

Her perception was that kids who'd always been 'really good at math' suddenly couldn't do it, or had problems doing it - found it harder, etc.

She said that what distinguished these kids was fantastic memories. They soaked everything up, and they'd been coasting on pure memory ability.

This is a key, key insight. How do we catch this in first grade where there is a chance to do something about it?

-- SusanJ - 31 Jan 2006

Catherine, would you consider writing a letter to the LA Times about their article?

hmmm......why don't you tell me which points we should make.....

The false rigor of adding Algebra req. without math foundation.

Failure begins w/ basic K-8 math.

Math education is cumulative

Spiral vs Teach to Mastery

Lack of Formative Assesment

-- BenCalvin - 31 Jan 2006

Now to explicitly remember all the different syllable-break rules that I've internalized

We just did the soft c before i,e, and y rule and hard hard c before a, o and u rule. And, I admitted to my son that I didn't remember learning that rule. He turns around and asks me "then how do you know how to say those words"? That's when I realized how difficult it is no explain to a kid what it means to have internalized the rule.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

Part of the problem there, I'm positive, is that suddenly the kids read books with multisyllabic words they can't sound out.

Then we have the expanded vocabularies, the increased domain knowledge, and reading to learn. Add it all up and you can easily see that kids need to be almost expert readers by the fourth grade to succeed in middle school and beyond. And, here we have educators taking their sweet time teaching kids how to read using inefficient and unresearched programs in K-3. No wonder there are problems.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

Ganz, who wants to teach third grade, thinks the required math courses are overkill. "I guarantee I won't need to know all this," she said....

David Klein teaches math at CSUN.

This stuff must drive him absolutely nuts.

-- CarolynJohnston - 31 Jan 2006

I could quite competently read (out loud, in class) a passage of French with zero comprehension of most of the words

WOW

That's amazing.

I'm the same way, though I can't pronounce ANYTHING in a foreign language.

But I can easily read it.

I'm surprised you're not a savant-type speller, though, if you can do that - - - - ??

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Another big problem is lack of domain knowledge which the kids are not getting under the anti-knowledge progressive/constructivist regime.

Makes matters worse, that's for sure.

Christopher had pretty good domain knowledge, though, for the books he was reading, and all of a sudden he just wasn't reading.

He's also got his funky visual-processing-whatever, so it's always a mystery with him.

But the fact that he started reading again after working with MEGAWORDS struck me as being more than a coincidence.

(I didn't buy the program to improve his reading; I didn't even know spelling and reading were essentially the same skill when I first started looking for help with spelling.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

This is a key, key insight. How do we catch this in first grade where there is a chance to do something about it?

I wish I'd asked her whether these kids regained their footing.

My guess would be that they did.....seeing as how a good memory is a HUGE help in spiraling courses.

heck

Wish I'd asked her.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Add it all up and you can easily see that kids need to be almost expert readers by the fourth grade to succeed in middle school and beyond

I can't quite tell how demanding the reading is in middle school.....

But certainly, a child needs to be reading multi-syllabic words fluently at age 11.

No question.

He probably also needs to be able to figure out the meanings of 3 novel words from his knowledge of every 1 known word. I think that's the ratio. (It's in the MEGAWORDS research paper.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Carolyn

David Klein teaches math at CSUN.

This stuff must drive him absolutely nuts.

It does.

Plus they've had some huge, bloody political battle that resulted (THIS IS NOT FACT-CHECKED) in the elementary ed math courses being taken away from the math department on grounds that the math department wasn't treating minorities well, i.e. was failing too many (I haven't re-read his email on this subject, so take this with a grain of salt).

It's fair to say that the elementary math ed situation is a nightmare at Northridge.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

Just in from the EM public relations department: Can the words "spiraling" and "mastery" be used in the same sentence without the word "no"? Find out below....

CHAMPAIGN – It's all adding up at Barkstall School, where students are well on their way to their goal – solving a million problems. They're doing math problems in class, talking about them in the halls and taking their work home getting family members involved. The grand total after the first two weeks of their eight-week campaign: 238,634 problems. These math-savvy students invited parents to school recently to learn more about their new Everyday Math curriculum and their problem-solving campaign. Some parents said they're a little baffled by the curriculum's new approach to math education. The curriculum adopted by the district in December 2004, at a cost of more than $700,000, brought new math books and materials to all students this school year. "It's fun for them but it's very different for me," said Julie Swartz of Savoy. "We're trying to help with homework, and it's good to have an explanation because it's so different." "We get to play games," said 7-year-old Phillip Swartz. Barkstall Principal Trudy Walters said the new curriculum at all levels used a "spiral" method to reinforce math mastery. "You introduce something but you don't work on mastery immediately," said Walters, a math teacher herself. "You come back and reintroduce things. I saw frustration among parents because our mindset is you master something and move on. The beauty of this is you're constantly bringing things back, but parents don't understand the new way of thinking." She and parent Mike Haile talked about ways to get parents interested in learning more about the new program and came up with the "Solve a Million Problems" campaign. "It's getting parents intrigued, it's promoting math conversation at dinner, and it's about how math's an integral part of life," Walters said. The campaign will continue until the end of February, and Walters is certain her students will easily pass the million-problem mark. She's also encouraging students to make up problems. Every day, the school draws one student's name and the next day, that student poses his or her made-up problem over the school's public address system. "If it's a fifth-grader's problem, fourth-graders might be able to solve it, but even in kindergarten and first grade, teachers write the problem on the board; they solve it and talk it through so even the youngest students are getting exposed," she said. Walters said she's been impressed by some students' complex and creative problems. "This puts a positive spin on math and problem solving," she said. "Math shouldn't be about solving a page of problems and getting it over with. I wanted math put in a light of a life filled with solving problems." Joel Crames worked with parents and students in his fifth-grade class. "First we introduce math concepts, the second part's the lesson, the third part is boxes with problems from previous lessons, and the fourth part is homework," Crames said. "We give them the answers. It's more important how they got the answer. We look for trends to see which kid got it all and which kid only gets some of it." Aparna Naidu and her son, Vamsi, played a multiplication game called Factor Captor. Naidu said she's glad to see her son taking such an interest in his studies. "The games are fun, and I'm doing better," Vamsi said.

-- KathyIggy - 31 Jan 2006

"We're trying to help with homework, and it's good to have an explanation because it's so different."

RED FLAG!

Wow, the even found a way to screw up mastery learning. That was fast.

-- KDeRosa - 31 Jan 2006

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

My favorite nonsense word. : )

-- KarenA - 31 Jan 2006

Wow, the even found a way to screw up mastery learning. That was fast.

This is like the Marxist dialectic. Capture the opposition’s term, repurpose it to mean the opposite of what was originally intended, and move on to the next bit of jargon. If you control the terms you control the debate.

I’m waiting for the first use of “spiraling to mastery.”

-- BenCalvin - 31 Jan 2006

I’m waiting for the first use of “spiraling to mastery.”

That's exactly what I was thinking. If you can't beat 'em, why, just adopt their argument. You said it much better, though.

I'm guessing they're thinking that no one's paying attention.

-- SusanS - 31 Jan 2006

"This is like the Marxist dialectic. Capture the opposition’s term, repurpose it to mean the opposite of what was originally intended, and move on to the next bit of jargon. If you control the terms you control the debate."

That's a crucial point. It's happened to a lot of terms like outcome, standards. I even saw core knowledge being redefined. Often curriculum is used to refer to a particular teaching practice and not to subject matter. Other terms are simply abandoned. Teachers are more likely "educators" (a term I despise) or coaches. Subject matter is content. Tests are assessments and so on.

-- CharlesH - 31 Jan 2006

This technique is a CONSTANT.

A CONSTANT-CONSTANT.

Every once in awhile I ask myself why I should have taken such umbrage to constructivism & fuzzy math — what do I care, really?

I'm not a math brain.

Sometimes I think it's the abuse of language pure and simple.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

spiraling to mastery

we should start a pool

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

It's all adding up at Barkstall School, where students are well on their way to their goal – solving a million problems.

HAH!

I've probably already passed that goal, what with my RUSSIAN MATH and my KUMON and my SAXON MATH and my CHALLENGING WORD PROBLEMS GRADE 3 and all.

A lot of good it's done me.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Jan 2006

at a cost of more than $700,000

AND THAT'S NOT COUNTING HOW MUCH THE MATH ENRICHMENT SPECIALISTS ARE GONNA COST!

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

KEY WORDS: BEN CALVIN ON LETTER TO LOS ANGELES TIMES

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

assuming Andrew lets me get a full night's sleep tonight, AND I get my proposal done (again) tomorrow, I'm gonna write a letter

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

Barkstall Principal Trudy Walters said the new curriculum at all levels used a "spiral" method to reinforce math mastery. "You introduce something but you don't work on mastery immediately," said Walters, a math teacher herself. "You come back and reintroduce things. I saw frustration among parents because our mindset is you master something and move on. The beauty of this is you're constantly bringing things back, but parents don't understand the new way of thinking."

OK, this is not a new way of thinking.

This is an old way of thinking.

Jerome Bruner invented spiraling curricula in the 1960s.

By 1980 most (or all?) American curricula were spiraling curricula.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

What's new today is that these curricula are actually telling parents they're not teaching to mastery on purpose.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

"You introduce something but you don't work on mastery immediately," said Walters, a math teacher herself. "You come back and reintroduce things. I saw frustration among parents because our mindset is you master something and move on..."

I have a headache. What is mastery and yet not mastery? This is Zen, isn't it?

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Feb 2006

I'd be willing to bet a small sum of money that was a critical mistake.

It was a critical mistake because yes indeed the 'mindset' amongst parents is that we teach to mastery.

what parents think: the school is trying to teach to mastery, and failing

what constructivists think: we never tried in the first place

big difference

When parents start to figure out that:

a) schools aren't teaching to mastery on purpose

and

b) schools are grading kids on their 'performance' after deliberately not teaching to mastery

.....they're gonna be pissed

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

promoting math conversation at dinner

I have been expressly forbidden from talking about math at the dinner table

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

The other morning I found an incredibly cool problem in Saxon 8/7, and Ed refused even to look at it.

Then Christopher refused to look at it.

If the school wants to put some Pressure on those two to Talk About Math At The Dinner Table......that would be just fine and dandy.

heh

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

The kids in my Singapore Math class LOVED writing their own problems. (I didn't ask them to do it; they did it on their own. It's possible they were doing it in TRAILBLAZERS; I don't know.)

One kid invented, on the spot, NOT from TRAILBLAZERS & not from anything his dad had shown him, A DISTANCE PROBLEM.

TWO TRAINS START OUT IN SAN DIEGO AND TUSCON......

he came up with this completely on his own

I asked him if he'd ever seen such a problem, and he said no

I'm sure he was telling the truth

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

What was the incredibly cool problem? Some of us weirdos might like it. (Okay, two of us. Maybe three.)

-- GoogleMaster - 01 Feb 2006

"I have been expressly forbidden from talking about math at the dinner table"

Several years ago, when I was on my "math ranting obsession" as my family so kindly referred to it, my family gave "math" the status of a four- letter word. They literally started referring to it as the "m" word, and I was banned from using it, or starting any conversation even remotely related to math education. . . .

I could SO have used KTM back in those days, let me tell you.

-- KarenA - 01 Feb 2006

I could SO have used KTM back in those days, let me tell you.

We obsessed people have to band together.

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Feb 2006

"I’m waiting for the first use of “spiraling to mastery.”"

A spiral can be expanding or contracting, like spiraling down the toilet.

I prefer to call it repeated partial learning, like taking and failing algebra three times in a row.

-- SteveH - 01 Feb 2006

This is the link to the LA Time Blog for the Vanishing Class – Part 2 article.

http://newsblogs.latimes.com/dropouts/2006/01/welcome.html#comments

-- JoAnneC - 01 Feb 2006

JoAnne^? -- thanks for that link!!!

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Feb 2006

OK, after my previous failure to find stuff in Google, I must redeem myself. You wanted "spiral[ing] to mastery"? From the 11th of January, this year:

"Has anyone had a child who flipped between spiral to mastery to spiral?"

Here.

Of course this isn't Orwellian, but I assert that it counts anyway.

8-)

-- DougSundseth - 01 Feb 2006

I am in week four of teaching my math booster class and my second semester of tutoring at the college. Here are some antedotal stuff that I learned:

About boys and EM: I think EM gives boys a really false sense of confidence. I have about equal numbers of boys and girls, but only the boys brag that they already know this stuff and it's too easy for them. Then I pose a really simple calculation problem on the board and they just stare at it, and sit down.

In my fifth grade class, I have spent a couple of weeks preparing the way to learn to add fractions. We are learning prime factorization, LCD and equivalent fractions. So, I said that next week we would learn to add fractions. One boys said that he already knew how to do this. I said ok, add this: 5/6 + 1/8. He just said "Oh." and sat down.

In my third grade class, I have a boy who knows all his times tables....or thinks he does. When we play war with times tables cards, there are a couple that he doesn't know (and doesn't know how to figure out either). He says that he is doing fractions and decimals in math facts in a flash. That's what he wants to learn. I said, ok, multiply this: 76x8. He just said "oh" and sat down.

The real problem I see is that these very math oriented boys are very resistant to learning algorithims. I tried to teach him how to solve 76x8 the traditional way, and he wanted to figure it out himself. The other boys in the class don't know all their times tables. But they readily took to the algorithim for multidigit multiplication and could solve the problems. This boys never did end up solving a multidigit multiplication problem on his own.

IMO, for these particular boys (not all boys in my classes), EM is taking their can-do spirit and reinforcing it to the point that they will resist doing the work to learn an algorithim.

What I learned about teaching algebra in tutoring:

The calculators that the students have now will put an answer in terms of decimals, fractions or mixed numbers. All the students have to do is press a button and the answer will come out in any form that they want. The teachers encourage this and show the kids how to use this on their calculators. What this does is mask the problem of fraction manipulation. They can do all the problems by putting the numbers in their calculator. So they can pass prealgebra, but when they are faced with this problem: 2/(x+1) + 3x/(xsquared - 1), they won't be able to do it because they can't add regular fractions with unlike denominator.

I am beginning to believe that fraction manipulation is totally the gateway to higher math. Every fifth grade should spend the year exclusively on long division and fraction manipulation with calculators banned from the classroom. I find that once the students understand fractions completely, then decimals and percentages are a piece of cake because they are a special case of fractions.

-- AnneDwyer - 01 Feb 2006

"About boys and EM: I think EM gives boys a really false sense of confidence. I have about equal numbers of boys and girls, but only the boys brag that they already know this stuff and it's too easy for them."

I think my 4th grade EM son would say this about anything. At least with Singapore Math or Saxon, there might be a chance that it would be true.

I can't tell you how many times I have told him that it is OK not to know something, but it's not OK to pretend that you do. I think the problem is that he doesn't make a big distinction between knowing something about a topic and really knowing the topic.

Hopefully this will resolve itself over time.

-- SteveH - 01 Feb 2006

Hopefully this will resolve itself over time.

Don't count on it..

-- KDeRosa - 01 Feb 2006

Every fifth grade should spend the year exclusively on long division and fraction manipulation with calculators banned from the classroom.

I'll have to remember to confirm that calculators are banned in my son's math classes. But I imagine that's the case.

-- BenCalvin - 01 Feb 2006

"So, I said that next week we would learn to add fractions. One boys said that he already knew how to do this. I said ok, add this: 5/6 + 1/8. He just said "Oh." and sat down."

It's a positive sign that he knew he didn't know (metacognition?). He could have been cocksure that the answer is 6/14.

-- CharlesH - 01 Feb 2006

I feel like I have spent YEARS of my life hearing this, when it can't be more than 4 or 5....

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

I've got to finally read Willingham's article!

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

Anne

Have I got this right?

They now have calculators that do fractions completely - yes?

So you're seeing kids who've learned nothing about how fraction algorithms actually work.

This is in 5th grade (i.e. at the K-5 level).

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

Anne

The folks at KUMON would sure agree with you.

They have two full levels of fractions. 400 worksheets.

At least.

(I can't remember what happened in Level D; I don't think there were any fractions, & Christopher's not doing any now. Don't know what's in store in Level G, either.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

Karen

How'd you get over your math obsession?

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

Wow, you guys should really read the comments page in the blog that JoAnne^? linked to above. The comments are all over the map, from "our schools suck; it's the teachers' fault" to "the kids are lazy and their parents enable them".

I sure hope this letter is a joke:

My son is one of the 3kids sitting there and i have kids just like everyone else and i think the teachers need to start looking to see where the problem is why is there a child sleeping why there should not be a reason unless the class is over crowred and the teacher can not meet there needs i am planning to go to the school this is the last couple of years of son high school and saw the pictures they look strest now i can see why my son has headakes i would to everyone seems like there in another world or just dont care i do cause know what it is to be a drop out and how life has treated me and i dont know where to start but ill be dammed if that happens to my son thank you sometime we need media to see what is happenning to our youth
Posted by: JOANIE | January 30, 2006 at 10:59 PM

The next one is far more literate, but just as disturbing:

I was expelled from the California State School System in 1983. I went on to obtain a CHSPE or California High School Proficiency Exam. I became an emancipated minor after living in juvenile hall, boy's ranches and group homes. Soon after I went out on my own I became homeless. I remained homeless for many years. My problems began in 1968 when I was abandoned in a brown paper sack. Many children today feel as abandoned as I did. Low self esteem. Parents too busy working to pay the bills. Single Parents. Parents on drugs.

-- GoogleMaster - 01 Feb 2006

I have GOT to try to get done with my proposal FAST (making progress...) so I can at least try to get a letter in the TIMES.

Everywhere I look, I see folks blaming the student:

Most of our students, like the students profiled in your article, have under-educated or even illiterate parents, learned English as a second language, and have little or no firsthand knowledge of the skills and determination that will be required of them in order to succeed

joannejacobs Commenters, yesterday, were singing the same song, in spite of the fact that Joanne had underlined the folly of having a student repeat a course for which he doesn't possess the prerequisite skills.

People focus on the girl who missed 63 days out of 90 (IIRC).

But those 63 days are beside the point.

She should miss 63 days; she should miss the whole 90. They all should. These kids are not going to learn algebra if they sit there for 90 years. They don't have the prerequisite skills.

Furthermore, that is not their fault.

They were children when schools were supposed to be teaching them arithmetic. Children are not responsible for their own learning.

Time is valuable, including the time of young Hispanic high school students who don't have the skills to learn algebra. This class wastes their time, the teacher's time, and, frankly, our time.

and furthermore.....I'm reaching the point where I don't want to hear another word about SES.

I dislike hearing it about low SES kids for the obvious reasons: RICHARD ROTHSTEIN HAS SHOWN THEY CAN'T LEARN TIL THEIR SES GOES UP-UP-UP!

oh, that's good

If poor people are going to have to wait 'til they make it to the upper middle class before their kids get taught how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions, they're going to be waiting a very long time.

But I've also come to dislike socioeconomic talk about the high SES kids.

High SES kids do not magically acquire math skills over the dinner table. High SES kids learn math from good teachers and/or good curricula, from tutors, and/or from helicopter parents.

And plenty of high-SES kids aren't learning the math skills they need.

I doubt that even mathematically gifted and talented kids are bullet-proof - though they can take a lot more bad instruction than the rest of us can.

(I'll get Milgram's testimony to Congress posted later on. Highly relevant to all this.)

My strong feeling, at this point, is that SES has nothing to do with teaching & learning arithmetic K-5, unless we're talking about kids not getting to school in the first place because parents are dysfunctional.

In that case, yes. SES matters.

Apart from that, these kids - all of them - would be able to learn algebra if they had the prerequisite skills the schools were supposed to have taught them years ago.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

5 o'clock; I've got to get back to work

BUT here's the other thing that gripes me.....

as I understand it, tests like Key Math can tell you all you need to know about what a student does and does not know.

At least, this is what one of the main special ed teachers at the middle school told me. She said it's an excellent test. The school appears to give it routinely to special ed kids, AND THEN THEY GEAR THEIR INSTRUCTION TOWARDS THE RESULTS.

Not one of these kids has been tested or 'diagnosed' for level of prerequisite skill.

They're placed in the class by age, not by knowledge.

It's outrageous.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Feb 2006

I have a calculator that does fractions completely and that also does division with remainders. This calculator (the TI-Explorer) was designed for use in middle school classes.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 01 Feb 2006

Isn't this, as well as the example of the Cal St Northridge would-be teacher who doesn't "get" math, arguments for scripted Direct Instruction?

-- BenCalvin - 01 Feb 2006

I've posted this graph before -- It is a graph of SES (household income) vs Student Achievement (Combined Reading and Math proficiency on the PSSA) for all 501 of Pennsylvania's school districts.

The correlation is 0.427 which is a medium sized corelation for the social science. The correlation between parental education and student achievment for this data set was about 0.6. The correlation between instructional expenditure vs student achievement is about 0.01, i.e., random.

It is pretty clear from the graph that SES is a brutal predictor of academic success. The amount of money spent on education doesn't affect the outcome.

Knowing that almost every school district in this sample pretty much toes the educrat line by teaching constructivist nonsense, we can assume that school inputs are constant -- everybody is getting pretty much the same education at school, i.e, a mostly rotten one.

Also, we know that the correlation between IQ and student performance is 0.41 (coincidence? I think not). SO the high SES school districts have more smarter kids and the low SES school districts have less smarter kids.

We also know that high SES households have smarter parents on average and more resources available for tutoring than the lower SES households.

A reasonable conclusion is that when school instruction is poor, SES (familial inputs, i.e., IQ of parents and children and parental resources) matters a lot. Even if the instruction improves, we're still going to see the same correlation unless we 1. lower the proficient threshold so almost every kid passes or 2. teach so well that the smarter kids max out the test -- like we saw in the DI student performance graph on another thread.

-- KDeRosa - 01 Feb 2006

I have had a calculator that does fractions for some ten years now. And presumably I could make it provide remainders for division automatically when I'm not doing a calculation involving fractions, if I wanted.

Luckily I learnt fractions and long division by hand at primary school, and sat a lot of exams where calculators were forbidden. And this calculator was unusual at my high school, I only had it because of Dad being Dad. Other gifts he gave me while I was at high school included a laminated copy of the periodic table and his old School C history notes.

(I love this calculator, it has gone all the way through university, several jobs, and a move overseas and back again with me. It is the only thing that always comes with me on my first day in a new job. Sadly it doesn't do complex numbers, so at engineering school I had to buy another calculator that did. I only used that one when I had to.)

-- TracyW - 02 Feb 2006

I just love that girl in the picture. If I were on my third time in algebra I'd be writing notes to my boyfriend, too.

You'd think that somebody, anybody, would figure out that she always flunks algebra because she was never ready for it in the first place. What a mess.

-- SusanS - 02 Feb 2006

But a reasonable conclusion would be that good instruction would tend to even out SES-induced differences. Another indication that educationist doctrine in action perpetuates stratification. Or, put another way, "progresive" education impedes progress.

-- CharlesH - 02 Feb 2006

But a reasonable conclusion would be that good instruction would tend to even out SES-induced differences.

Charles, I don't see why this necessarily follows. If one thing is true, it's that higher IQ kids will learn more and faster than low IQ kids given the same level of instruction. We might be able to reduce that effect (because I think it's also true that progressive education affects low IQ kids more adversely), but there will always be a real stratification based on IQ. The best that can be done is to mask the stratification by setting the proficiency level sufficiently low so that everybody passes (or fails).

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

I have a calculator that does fractions completely and that also does division with remainders. This calculator (the TI-Explorer) was designed for use in middle school classes.

boy

i'm behind the curve here

way behind

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

A reasonable conclusion is that when school instruction is poor, SES (familial inputs, i.e., IQ of parents and children and parental resources) matters a lot.

My brain is fried at the moment......and I think I'm working this out wrong.....but don't these kinds of data start to tell us the schools are doing almost nothing?

Let's see....

I'm going to assume a direct one-to-one correlation between SES & achievement (which I realize is not the case).

If that were true......

you know what?

I'm too tired to work my way through the logic

Suffice it to say that I'm taking it Very Badly that SES is such a Big, Fat predictor.

As opposed to, say, The School You Went To being the big, fat predictor

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

right....that makes sense

AND it wouldn't bug me so much IF THE KIDS WERE ACTUALLY LEARNING ARITHMETIC, READING, AND WRITING TO MASTERY

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

SUSAN

I just love that girl in the picture. If I were on my third time in algebra I'd be writing notes to my boyfriend, too.

You'd think that somebody, anybody, would figure out that she always flunks algebra because she was never ready for it in the first place. What a mess.

yeah, and doing it for the camera, too!

good for her

The horror here - one of the many horrors - is that no one in that room knows what's wrong.

They think it's them, or it's the teacher, or it's their SES and their Inferior Parents, or it's their absentee rate, or their no-study-habits or their this or their that.

In fact, they have not been taught arithmetic, and they sure as hell have never been given the slightest degree of formative assessment.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

They should be picketing the school district.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

WAIT!

I shouldn't be posting when I'm this tired.

Speaking out of Pure Bayesian gut feeling, I don't believe IQ & SES & whatnot are innately linear.

It didn't surprise me when the EDGE guy said the normal bell curve isn't normal. I don't think the line on Ken's graph is normal, either.

All this stuff is dynamic, and I say that barely knowing what 'dynamic' is......

When you change one large element in a system like the one Ken's chart represents you can get all kinds of other, unpredicted changes that affect the entire form.....you don't necessarily just shift the line up bodily.

If someone cares to supply me with some examples, that would be great!

I know they're out there —

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I love this calculator, it has gone all the way through university, several jobs, and a move overseas and back again with me. It is the only thing that always comes with me on my first day in a new job. Sadly it doesn't do complex numbers, so at engineering school I had to buy another calculator that did. I only used that one when I had to.

boy, i need that thing

every once in a while when I get insanely stuck on a KUMON fraction problem (that would be every day) I REALLY need an Outside Calculating Aid

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Ben

Isn't this, as well as the example of the Cal St Northridge would-be teacher who doesn't "get" math, arguments for scripted Direct Instruction?

Well, ummm, I think so!

But I don't want to bug Carolyn about DI.....!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I've been semi-submerged in proposal revising, and cruising Gantt chart sites, so I haven't checked the DI thread — everyone may have said this already.

My feeling about teachers, and I'd bet the ranch on this, is that they're happy when their kids learn. Teachers are right there, on the front lines. When their kids succeed, they succeed.

This is why I suspect that in practice many teachers who've been handed a script and told to Get Trained Up, are going to end up feeling good about the results — just so long as she sees the kids learning and succeeding.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Isn't this, as well as the example of the Cal St Northridge would-be teacher who doesn't "get" math, arguments for scripted Direct Instruction?

I don't get this. Let me turn this on its head. Why is this situation an argument for DI in particular?

Would the Gambill method, or the MattGoff method, or the SmartestTractor method, applied by a mathematically competent teacher, be sufficient? I believe it would.

(Really, you know what all of these three people have in common? They are HELICOPTER TEACHERS.)

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Feb 2006

"If one thing is true, it's that higher IQ kids will learn more and faster than low IQ kids given the same level of instruction. We might be able to reduce that effect (because I think it's also true that progressive education affects low IQ kids more adversely), but there will always be a real stratification based on IQ."

I agree with Ken. The point is that with better teaching, the slope of the line would be about the same, just higher. Everyone will have a higher proficiency. This is good. The goal can't be to eliminate the correlation.

However, I would say that it's not just the child and his/her IQ that comes into play here. I can't imagine a high IQ child will naturally overcome a bad education without a lot of parental help. With really bad education, high SES parents will do more to make up the difference. As you improve the quality of teaching and curricula, the slope of the line will flatten out. This would be a slow flattening until you get to Ken's #2 condition of the smarter kids maxing out. I won't hold my breath.

But all of this doesn't matter one bit. Doing a decent job of teaching K-8 is not rocket science. The goal is to keep the educational doors open so that all kids, no matter what their SES level, can succeed to the best of their abilities. Educational policy, curricula, and expectations should be based on individuals, not SES and averages.

"Suffice it to say that I'm taking it Very Badly that SES is such a Big, Fat predictor."

Don't fret. The slope of the line is not important, only the height.

"AND it wouldn't bug me so much IF THE KIDS WERE ACTUALLY LEARNING ARITHMETIC, READING, AND WRITING TO MASTERY."

Exactly. Besides, why would anyone expect there to be no correlation? What would that say about our society? That schools teach so well that EVERYONE will be doctors or rocket scientists? I would settle for schools that taught so well that ANYONE can be a doctor or scientist.

I just care about the stinking low height of the line, and I don't know how anyone could think that you have to flatten the line before you raise it. I hate SES talk because it distracts everyone from doing something right now for individual kids.

SES does not predict the height of the curve. The height of the curve depends on the quality of teaching and the curriculum. For an individual child, the height of the curve is much more important than SES.

-- SteveH - 02 Feb 2006

About the calculators that do fractions: all of my students who are taking pre algrebra and above are using them. Ironically, the basic math class does not allow any calculators!!

I don't know what the kids use at school. None of my Math Booster students has come into my class with a calculator. At home here I have an old TI something and just some basic ones that I use mostly when I need to revise knitting patterns. (BTW, here's an example of inflexible learning: all knitting patterns list stiches/4in and rows/10cm. But the cm work out much better when measuring knitting stiches. I just have not been able to make myself create an entire pattern using metric.)

Today I not only taught a scripted lesson in adding fractions with unlike denominators for my 5th grade class, I even scripted the worksheet so they would have to calculate certain things and put them in a certain place. They whined all the way through class. Even the kids who got the method quite easily and could do all the problems whined about how hard they were. Either I'm teaching way above their heads or they have never been challenged in a math class before or both. Maybe I am being very stubborn, but I just cannot see teaching them to add fractions with unlike denominators without teaching them to obtain and use the Lowest Common Denominator.

I may not have any fifth grade students after this session!!!

-- AnneDwyer - 02 Feb 2006

What you really have to do is to construct a 3D surface where the independent variables are SES and quality of curricula and teaching. The dependent variable would be combined proficiency. Given the current poor quality of teaching, I would suggest that the slope in the quality of curricula and teaching direction would be much steeper than in the SES direction. As the education improves, the SES slope flattens out.

-- SteveH - 02 Feb 2006

Suffice it to say that I'm taking it Very Badly that SES is such a Big, Fat predictor.

As opposed to, say, The School You Went To being the big, fat predictor

Catherine -- Don't read Freakonomics.

If I recall correctly, Levitt spends a chapter talking about performance on school tests. He argues that it doesn't even matter what parent's do, it's who they are. He goes through a bunch of stuff like number of books in the house -- whether the books are read to children doesn't affect their test performance, it's just the number of books in the house. Stuff like that.

I console myself with the fact that he's talking about performance on school achievement tests, not happiness or competence. I don't think school achievement tests actually measure anything that is terribly important (not the ones I took, anyway). I suspect these tests largely end up testing IQ, which is highly correlated with who your parents are, so his whole chapter isn't very profound.

-- StephanieO - 02 Feb 2006

Catherine -- Don't read Freakonomics.

"Dubner and Levitt deconstruct everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns."

The marketing "angle" of the book is deconstruction, not peer-reviewed science. This is about making money by writing a book. Push some hot buttons; push some pet theories; push your reputation. Perhaps the book is great for the next cocktail party you go to, but like nightly network news, shallow and not worth your time.

Performance on achievement tests matter and presumably test for competence, but they are so simple that they should be a minimum target and not a maximum goal. All teachers should laugh at these simple tests. Unfortunately, schools allow kids to move on to the next grade without meeting minimal standards, thereby making life very difficult for teachers. However, the tests are not the problem.

-- SteveH - 02 Feb 2006

HELICOPTER TEACHERS

I love it!

It's true.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Helicopter teachers!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Isn't this, as well as the example of the Cal St Northridge would-be teacher who doesn't "get" math, arguments for scripted Direct Instruction?

I don't get this. Let me turn this on its head. Why is this situation an argument for DI in particular?

Would the Gambill method, or the MattGoff^? method, or the SmartestTractor^? method, applied by a mathematically competent teacher, be sufficient? I believe it would.

I think Ben is talking about the fact that LA Unified is going to continue to have mathematically incompetent teachers (especially assuming that my memory of Davd's email is correct).

I assume he's saying that if you have teachers with very limited comprehension of elementary mathematics, you want them using a script written by a person with good comprehension.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

There are plenty of times, btw, where I want a script in math.

Math is incredibly precise, and I often am not sure if I'm putting something exactly right.

I always want you guys to tell me the exact right formulation.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

The point is that with better teaching, the slope of the line would be about the same, just higher. Everyone will have a higher proficiency. This is good. The goal can't be to eliminate the correlation.

I actually think the line would change.....

That line is one of those Core Assumptions we've all made for so long that it just seems true, true meaning built into nature.

It's been REIFIED!

REIFIED TO BEAT THE BAND!

But I agree that the focus should ABSOLUTELY be on the height of the line.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

The other thing that has started to get to me is......I think the HUGE diagnosis of LD in high-SES kids stems from our Core Assumption that high SES kids just naturally have high achievement.

When they don't, they get a diagnosis.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I hate SES talk because it distracts everyone from doing something right now for individual kids.

Ditto, ditto, ditto — unless you use SES talk to argue for TEACHING TO MASTERY & FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TO CHECK WHETHER YOU DID TEACH TO MASTERY

And again, I think SES talk is terrible for high-SES kids, too.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Think about the fact that educators universally believe that 'boys do worse than girls in middle school but then they catch up.'

This belief is based in the belief that high-SES kids are bullet-proof. High SES means high IQ means high ACHIEVEMENT.

Well, let's operationalize that.

What does the high-SES, high-IQ boy whose fallen behind in middle school do to catch up in high school?

Does he suddenly start working lots harder than the girls?

Does his IQ suddenly shoot up higher than the girls' IQs?

What?

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

FREAKONOMICS is pretty reprehensible, I think....though I'll get around to reading it (possibly).

I've been meaning to post my Heckmann stuff. Heckmann's a guy who's looked closely at all these things, and he takes a major swipe at Leavitt in one of the interviews I have.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

think Ben is talking about the fact that LA Unified is going to continue to have mathematically incompetent teachers....

This is exactly what I was trying to express regarding DI.

My limited understanding of DI is it can achieve results even when taught by less than optimum instructors and with limited to no parental involvement. (I'm sure this is a bit of an over simplification.)

-- BenCalvin - 02 Feb 2006

There are plenty of times, btw, where I want a script in math.

Saxon provides one, thank goodness. I read every single word from every chapter to my LD son and I believe it has made a huge difference. Everytime I go off on my own I manage to screw it up. He usually is sitting there staring at me with a look of, "huh?"

Because I have been sticking to the Saxon "script" he seems to be understanding math better than at any time before, and I mean in a dramatic way. Although, having to read from the book drives me nuts because I am a good teacher in many things, but apparently not this. I have accepted my limitations because the results are really amazing. I can now see through this experience how really difficult it is to say the right thing at the right time when it comes to learning math.

On top of that, learning the right concept at the right time as the best way of teaching math has also been a real eye-opener for me, especially since I was raised to see math as a collection of concepts that sort of relate to each other, at times, maybe. On certain days.... That heavy foundation is comforting to special needs kids and should never be taken away from them.

My son will still get sheets from school with oddly inappropriate problems containing skills that no one has taught him. Now that I'm really paying attention and know exactly what skills he has mastered, what skills are brand-new, and what he has never seen, I find myself much more disturbed by the amount of work he is given that he has no basis for solving. Sometimes he is graded and I'll see the problem he missed and ask him if anyone talked to him about it and the answer is always no.

-- SusanS - 02 Feb 2006

You are correct.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

right, that's certainly the way I see it

It really is "ABA" all over again.

Since we had a one-to-one teaching ratio at our autism school, they hired people who didn't have huge amounts of education or training - then trained them up in the script (and as Carolyn says, the 'script' in ABA calls for constant readjustment of what you're doing with the child)

In any case, they could make good instructors out of people who hadn't had a lot of training in or experience with autism

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I read a really interesting account by a mom who was doing a program like yours, only with some completely different math intervention program (in CA I think).

She said that EVERY time she went off on her own her son would fall off the track

Finally he started asking her, "Is that a 'David-word' or a 'Mom-word'?"

(David was the person who wrote the program.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I actually think the line would change.....

We actualy have some data from the DI research on the effects of IQ on student achievement.

Here we see what happens when kids get good instruction -- pretty much the same effect. Actually, the slope of the lines should be even steeper because:
1. The low performers got the best teachers and extra practice time to learn.
2. The high performers got the worse teachers, less instructional time, and were not permitted to accelerate to their full potential.

SES correlates with IQ. Often we don't know the students' IQs so we use SES as an IQ proxy. IQ (and by extension -- SES) predicts academic success pretty accurately, though certainly not perfectly.

What DI, and other good instructional programs, can do is increase the height of the student achievement line, but it can't eliminate (or even moderately reduce) the IQ effects. This is where the focus should be.

Changing a poor kid's SES won't do bupkis for his academic achievement because raising SES artificially won't raise his IQ. There are lots of separated twins studies that prove this. placing a low IQ twin with a high SES family will only raise his academic achievment marginally compared with the twin who was placed with a low SES family.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

Susan

I can now see through this experience how really difficult it is to say the right thing at the right time when it comes to learning math.

It really is amazing.

Speaking of assigning work with no rhyme or reason, we've just had another Phase 4 event. It's almost starting to be funny.

Christopher had a 'quiz' today on area.

He had ALL the formulas down cold (down cold for newly acquired material), AND he was doing a decent job of 'cessing things out - of noticing that they'd given him a diameter measure, not a radius measure, so he had to divide the diameter measure in half.

He was SET.

What's on the QUIZ?

One big, huge figure filled with tons of smaller figures whose areas he had to calculate & then add altogether.

First time he's ever, in his life, been asked to do such a thing.

I'm now intimately familiar with 4 different pre-algebra books (Saxon, Dolciani, Primary Math, Russian Math).

Not one of these texts asks a child to determine the area of a complex figure FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON A TEST.

This class is just bizarre.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

IQ (and by extension -- SES) predicts academic success pretty accurately, though certainly not perfectly

I have to check the Big Study on predicting college success....IIRC they discovered that SES wasn't predictive at all.

Everyone was stunned.

The predictor was quality of high school courses taken.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

All the SES data is masking other effects....

I don't reject the idea that SES & IQ rise together (though I believe the data showing a fall-off in income once IQ gets 'too high').

But I think the focus on SES is radically masking other things that may be & probably are more important.....

I'll have to get the dissident LD book posted.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

can do is increase the height of the student achievement line, but it can't eliminate (or even moderately reduce) the IQ effects

DISAGREE!

IQ is more malleable than that.....I PREDICT

You should definitely take a look at MIND SCULPTURE

The brain is plastic (at least, I'm on the 'side' of the debate that says it's plastic....)

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

There are lots of separated twins studies that prove this.

DISAGREE AGAIN!

And I know these studies!

(I edited Nancy Segal's book on twins...)

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

The other thing that has started to get to me is......I think the HUGE diagnosis of LD in high-SES kids stems from our Core Assumption that high SES kids just naturally have high achievement.

The thing that throws most people is that when you talk about IQ and SES effects you are talking about probabilities and not certainties.

On average, high IQ people tend to have high SES since they tend to be more educated and get better jobs. High IQ parents tend to have high IQ kids, above the median but not as high as the parent's IQ (regression to the mean). However, this is were the average child falls out. The unfortuante kid who falls two standard deviations below the median expected IQ will most likely be below the median IQ of the population. Similiarly, the fortunate kid who falls two standard deviations above the median IQ will most likely have a higher IQ than his parents.

Also, we are starting to find out that high IQ also carries with it an increase in genetic diseases related to cognitive functioning.

Furthermore, there are more than a few high SES people who are not high IQ so their offspring are even more likely tobe lower IQ and below the median of the population.

Add this all together and you see that high SES (i.e., high IQ) is not panacea against LDs and other low IQ related learning issues. All we can say is that on average high SES parents will have higher IQ kids than the rest of the population. And, as a result, these kids will tend to have higher student achievement (assuming everyone is receiving approximately the same education).

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

You should take a look at.....hmm

have to find the links

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Hey!

Here's the test Ms. Kahl gave the class!

$colorfig.jpg$

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

IQ is more malleable than that.....I PREDICT

Nope. Even Engelmann gets this wrong. The only reason why DI can be said to raise a child's IQ is due to the way we measure a child's IQ, i.e, mental age/chronologial age. Teach a child efficiently (i.e,, with DI) and you'ev raised his mental age, but in reality not his IQ. We know this because once you take one of these artifically smart kids out of DI they regress. They would not be regressing if their IQ had really been raised. Basically, they are still low IQ kids who've learned a lot.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

ok, links!

Heritability Estimates versus Large Environmental Effects: The IQ Paradox Resolved (pdf file of original paper)

The IQ Paradox Resolved (shorter summary of the paper)

The IQ Paradox Still Resolved

SCI AMERICAN squib on IQ Paradox

Terrific stuff.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

I PREDICT ANYWAY!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Actually, it's not a prediction.

I'd say (and yes, what do I know?)....I'd say the 'bulk' of the research shows IQ is highly variable within limits.

I'm trying to think what Gotteman told me the range was back when I interviewed him.

It was huge. Something like....golly, it may have been 40 points.

It's called a 'range of reaction.'

IQ isn't one stable figure or biological entity; it's a range of possibilities.

I'm quoting from memory now...

A child born to two parents with IQs of 100 would be expected to have a 'range of reaction' going from, IIRC, 80 to 120. (That sounds incredibly large, but I think that's what he said.) This is Irving Gotteman (Gottesman?) I forget.

The goal of education & of parents is to get the child to the top of his range rather than leaving him at the bottom.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

We know this because once you take one of these artifically smart kids out of DI they regress.

I have a great Koegel story about that.

Amazing.

BUT I must do KUMON!

Anyways, yes, I agree, but I interpret it differently.

When the environment has large effects on IQ you definitely have to maintain the environment to maintain the IQ.

That's what Flynn & Dickens talk about; they also have a very cool idea about multiplier effects of cultural knowledge & evolution.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

here's a good article on point.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Feb 2006

Interestingly, studies of adult identical twins who were separated at birth implies that the IQ-inheritance link is even stronger than Catherine's articles argue. According to these studies, twins reared apart have IQs that are about as correlated as twins reared together.

-- TracyW - 03 Feb 2006

I think I've lost track of what this IQ issue is all about or implies about education. I don't believe anyone thinks that improving education is not a goal, although many have quite different ideas of what improving education means. This is the raison d'etre for KTM. If schools can't do the job, we parents have to do it at home. No matter what the child's IQ, this help is invaluable.

In our town, IQ matters because they ignore it when they use full-inclusion tracking by age. The schools even acknowledge an academic ceiling. High IQ doesn't help much when the child is sitting around all day learning nothing.

-- SteveH - 03 Feb 2006

Ken,

For learning the syllable rules, I'd recommend Explode the Code, Book 4 (I think). It's weird that the most challenging book is in the middle of the series, not at the end, but there you go.

-- BrendaM - 06 Feb 2006

Some follow-up:

http://mikethemadbiologist.blogspot.com/2006/02/revisiting-richard-cohen-and-gabriela.html

-- SusanJ - 19 Feb 2006

I READ THAT ARTICLE - WAS PLANNING TO POST IT - AWFUL!

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Feb 2006

another teacher saying the problem is arithmetic, not algebra....

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Feb 2006

jamesmilgram mathandtime latimesalgebra algebrainlosangeles algebraincalifornia CAHSEE

-- CatherineJohnson - 24 Jul 2006

Meanwhile, in Houston, we have hired 10 dropout prevention specialists at $34K - 46K, to walk door-to-door to the homes of students who have dropped out of high school, to try to get them to re-enroll.

Among the names: Lauren Saenz, an 18-year-old freshman, who quit school last year after getting in trouble at Wheatley High School, and Kendrick Williams, a 17-year-old from the Clayton Homes community who's helping raise his girlfriend's baby.
Dozens of other teens are still missing, their stories untold. They may have run away, returned to Mexico, married, had babies or taken minimum-wage jobs.
A few just refuse to answer when Soria and the Houston Independent School District's other nine dropout-recovery specialists come knocking.
"Forty percent of my caseload is kids I've been looking for since the spring," the native Houstonian and Texas Southern University graduate said.
...
The dropout-prevention specialists are akin to social workers. They can help students find day care [and jobs], receive medical attention or even get bus tokens.

-- GoogleMaster - 26 Sep 2006

I'm a little confused by the sidebar that states that the district has roughly 22,500 high school students. The enrollment figures on the district's website show a little more than twice that number in high school.

-- GoogleMaster - 26 Sep 2006

hmmm...

what do you think about the dropout prevention specialists??

-- CatherineJohnson - 26 Sep 2006

I'm somewhat dismayed that they are needed. Not because there are dropouts, because there will always be dropouts, but because the dropouts who want to drop back in seem to lack the initiative to come back to school. They want to come back, but they're just waiting for a personal invitation to come back! Like this one:

Her mother, Laura Saenz, expected HISD to come knocking during August's dropout walk; she's relieved someone finally showed up. "I thought HISD forgot her house," she said.

At least the district has started to come clean about its dropout rate. They used to claim a less-than-10% dropout rate, when in reality, something more like 40% don't graduate. The district would claim stuff like, "Oh, those kids. They all moved out of district." Mmm-hmm, and if all these kids are moving out of the district, then why is enrollment increasing?

-- GoogleMaster - 26 Sep 2006

transparency is critical

-- CatherineJohnson - 26 Sep 2006

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