What can you do?

Let your school board know your thoughts.

Let the Superintendent know your thoughts.

Let the curriculum coordinator know your thoughts.

Write letters to the editor in the local newspapers.

Stay informed.

Talk with your kids.

Talk with your teachers.

Help stop the adoption of the 3rd edition of Everyday Mathematics.

Help the curriculum committee set education as it's top priority.

Other districts around the state and around the country have made changes based on community input. It can happen here also.

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Some of the amusing (if it wasn't so sad) findings in the New Milford, CT trial of Saxon Math and Singapore Math regards the success of Singapore Math.

Here's a couple of the New Milford, CT observations about Singapore Math:
"3. The pace of the program is quicker than anything we do and quicker even than our curriculum calls for. As a result, some special ed students actually perform AHEAD of their non-special education peers in successfully handling content almost by definition becoming non-special ed students!

5. Adoption of such a program would change the "landscape" that we know as math programming. Students in this program K-8 would have completed Algebra I, most of Algebra II and Geometry. Currently between 20%-25% are tackling Algebra I in grade 8; under 5% in a good year are tackling Geometry by that grade level."

And one of the reasons not to adopt Singapore Math:
"4. The "change in landscape" image sounds exciting, but presents real practical problems. Can we train 6th grade teachers to teach Algebra I well? Can we recruit grade 7 teachers who are comfortable presenting lots of Geometry and Algebra II? If not, do we have a sense we could train them and, if so, at what costs? If we went down this road, it would become necessary to redesign the scope and sequence of high school math sequences. Does the system have the funds to do that and the staff to deliver the change? We would have almost all students taking Calculus by junior year, if not before then. That means the academic levels expected of all our staff would be raised in math."

In other words, Singapore Math is too good?