Everett, Wash.
Published: Saturday, January 19, 2008

GUEST COMMENTARY

Fuzzy WASL math is failing our kids

By Val Stevens

 An astounding 37 percent of Washington's high school seniors -- about 26,500 students -- have failed the 10th-grade math WASL. By law, these students must keep taking math classes until they either pass -- or graduate without skills. In 2013, the math WASL will be a graduation requirement.

In Arlington, these statistics are even more dismal. That's why the Arlington School District offered a summer program on WASL math. Unfortunately, only three of 40 students attending the summer classes were able to pass when retested in August.

For years, parents, math professors and industry experts have insisted that the current math WASL curriculum is ruining our kids. They say it fails to give students basic algorithms and computations --the building blocks that teach why math works.

Instead, WASL math is "conceptual" or "discovery" math that asks students to "figure it out their own way." Conceptual math is for experts, not beginners. Students need to learn basic math first -- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For an eye-opening example of "conceptual" math, see this YouTube clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

California tried conceptual math for a while, but its student test scores plummeted. The state quickly dumped the "fuzzy" math and adopted international standards -- Singapore's basic, computational math -- and test scores zoomed through the roof.

Why hasn't Washington learned this lesson? Because the superintendent of public instruction, Terry Bergeson, wrote her doctoral thesis on conceptual math and doggedly refuses to give it up.

Her motto seems to be: "If the square peg won't fit in the round hole, get a larger hammer."

Last year, Senate Bill 5528 and House Bill 1906 called for an independent review of the WASL math curriculum. A group of 200 concerned parents, teachers and students with Where's the Math? rallied in Olympia to support the legislation. House Bill 1906 was passed into law, calling for an immediate review of the WASL math standards and curriculum.

The State Board of Education wisely selected Strategic Teaching, a completely unbiased and independent organization of mathematicians and teachers to review the WASL math standards. Its review found our standards to be sorely lacking. Key concepts are missing, the standards "lack focus and clarity," and there is too much emphasis on using calculators. Worse, the report said, Washington is not teaching its students the basics.

The company recommended that Washington adopt standards that have students memorize basic math facts and learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It also found that Washington expects far too little of its students. Our elementary school students are expected to learn only 75 percent of the math elementary school students in comparable states learn. For high school students, it's even worse: They're expected to learn only half the math as students from other states.

No wonder math tutoring in Washington has increased 340 percent and there's an explosion of college math remedial classes.

After receiving the independent review committee report, Bergeson must now, by law, revise WASL math standards and curriculum. However, the company she has chosen to do the revisions is the Dana Center, a company with a history of promoting conceptual math -- a major conflict of interest. When the Dana Center revised Texas math standards, the results were so deficient that the Fordham Foundation gave the new standards a "C."

At the same time, Bergeson has selected her own Standards Review Team. The team is charged with helping rewrite the standards and curriculum so our kids can finally learn math. However, since this is Bergeson's hand-picked group, how sure can we be that they will fight for the basics?

This feels like a setup.

Washington's students are failing math as it is currently taught. They are graduating without the basic skills needed for everyday life -- never mind the ability to compete for high-level jobs in math and science.

Independent, unbiased math experts have recommended we adopt international math standards that get back to basics. But powerful forces seem to be lining up against accomplishing this for our kids.

Only you can demand that your legislators and the governor force Terry Bergeson to let go of a math curriculum that is crippling our kids. Please let them hear your voice. Call, write or e-mail with your thoughts. Do it for our kids.



Sen. Val Stevens (R-Arlington) represents the 39th Legislative District.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA