ANNA CHANG-YEN - Daily Herald | Posted: Sunday, August 27, 2006 11:00 pm
After six years of touting the controversial Investigations math program, the Alpine School District is preparing to let schools calculate which math books they want.
For years, parents have complained that they couldn't understand the Investigations homework and the program didn't teach basic math facts. Now parents and educators are being asked to help choose a "balanced math" method that will blend old and new ideas about how children learn math.
But even as the district takes a small step away from its staunch support of the Investigations curriculum, one administrator says the move is not necessarily educational. It may be more a matter of public relations.
"This has never really been about student achievement," said K-12 administrator Barry Graff. "Our student achievement data is really -- all I can say is wow."
He was referring to the district's state test scores, which won't be made public until Sept. 15.
"The bottom line is we've got a lot of patrons out there that say all of that aside, you can tell them how effective it is and how good all the kids are doing, and they say, 'We don't like it,' and that's what we're really responding to," Graff said.
The district has pointed to improving student test scores as a good reason to keep Investigations, but last year amid criticism, the Board of Education issued a statement saying teachers were free to supplement the program with more traditional math.
But some teachers said they closed their classroom doors when they added "old" math to the mix, fearing for their jobs.
A districtwide math selection committee will be formed, including members of the district community council and regional PTA, teachers, principals and others. School-level teams of PTA members, community council members, concerned parents and educators are being put together to choose from district-approved materials.
"There are a lot of people who will have their fingerprints on this," Graff said.
First the committees will need to define what "balanced math" is, he said.
"Right now when we talk about balanced math, at this stage it's just conceptual," Graff said. "Let's not even look at the materials yet because we have to say, 'Exactly what is balanced mathfi What kinds of things are you balancingfi What does that look like in a school day in a math lessonfi What kinds of things are the teachers doingfi What kinds of things are the students doingfi' "
Once the "balanced math" concept is defined, the district committee will likely select two or three programs that school committees can choose from.
Graff points out that just one program per school probably won't be enough to fit the bill. "We'll say, 'Really the bottom line is we want you all doing balanced math, so whichever platform you choose, we want you to be pulling from the best of both worlds.' "
Investigations likely won't make an exit altogether. The program, which encourages students to come up with their own strategies for solving problems and share them with the class, has undergone a routine revision by its authors and could still make the district's list of approved curricula.
Bob Larson, a teacher at Shelley Elementary in American Fork, said a large part of being successful with Investigations is keeping parents in the know. Many parents were unhappy with the program because it didn't look like the math they learned as children, he said.
Larson said his students had the greatest success with Investigations math when parents were educated about the program.
"We walked through the strategies on math night," Larson said. "Virtually every parent that came to that math night and received that personal instruction were very supportive of what we were doing, and their children made better progress because the parent knew what to do."
Christian Dean, an Orem parent who pulled his children out of Alpine schools and enrolled them in charter schools because of Investigations math frustrations, said he has little faith in the district's math selection process.
"I can't imagine that it will be a wholly democratic process, or that the district will fully support each individual teacher's desire to choose their program," Dean said. "Are they going to buy, say, the Saxon system and provide both to every teacherfi Will they provide training support for each teacher for whatever program they choosefi It sounds expensive and unlikely to occur."
But Dean said even though the change came too late from his family, "I believe that most kids will benefit from ability to use more than the one style."
Graff said that some parents have said they felt blind-sided when Investigations debuted in the district in 2000, and said this time around, everyone affected by the change will be allowed to have their hands on the process.
"What we want to do here is the exact opposite of what we did six years ago," Graff said. "This time we want to be as transparent, as open, as inclusive as possible."
The district said it hopes to pick math materials after Christmas and order books by late March or early April, Graff said. The cost is expected to be $1 million to $2 million, with textbooks alone costing around $40 a student. Investigations uses mostly worksheets, and the district has been providing copies of those.
Each teacher will use whatever materials are selected in different ways, Graff said.
"What we would say is the text materials probably aren't as important as the pedagogy of the teacher," he said. "Let's not get caught up in arguments and battles over the materials. The bottom line is it's what the teacher does with the student, not what the text does with the student."
Larson said good teachers have been personalizing the Investigations curriculum all along to help meet each student's needs.
"We will embrace the program that is best-aligned with those national standards, knowing any program we have will have to be utilized as a tool," Larson said. "It's not all-inclusive. You don't just open the book and teach page one and then teach page two because it was after page one. You look at the needs of your students, which change from year to year.
"You still have to embrace some program so you have your base, but you add to it," Larson said. "Just like a good cook adds his own tastes and spices to make it work for them, we have to come up with a recipe that works for each individual child."
Anna Chang-Yen can be reached at 344-2549 or annac@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.