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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the death-by-litigation dept.

A parent whose child goes to a high school in the Wake County Public School System has been sued after criticizing the math curriculum used in the district.

Utah-based "Mathematics Vision Project" or "MVP," filed a lawsuit against Blain Dillard, whose son attends Green Hope High in Cary.

Dillard has been vocal about his opposition to the MVP curriculum, which is student-driven and focuses on group work, posting on his website, blog and social media.

The lawsuit obtained by ABC11 said, "In or around March 2019, Dillard commenced a crusade against MVP, claiming that MVP is ineffective and has harmed many students."

It alleges that some of Dillard's statements were false and defamatory and harmed the company financially.

https://abc11.com/education/wake-schools-parent-sued-after-criticizing-math-curriculum/5430840/


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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:19PM (9 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:19PM (#878218) Journal

    I tried a weak ass search for that, didn't find it, but found this which is similar: http://www.tnparents.com/our-voicesblog/major-problems-with-common-core [tnparents.com]

    Weird.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:16PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:16PM (#878244)

    Those aren't the result of common core curriculum standards, they're the result of incompetent people being allowed to produce materials.

    The answer would be 10+4=14, but this is a really bad example to use and the article is right in indicating that developmentally the kids aren't ready for that. This is something that you would do if you're dealing with larger numbers and wanting to add or multiply them quickly in your head.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:13PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:13PM (#878309) Journal

      I'm not an expert in primary education, but I disagree that this is necessarily developmentally inappropriate. I agree it's a poorly written question, though context could matter. Grouping into 10s, to my knowledge, is commonly taught around 1st grade age as a prelude to concepts that will be necessary to learn addition and "carrying" as well as some subtraction algorithms (where you need to regroup into 10s when you need to "borrow" from the next higher digit), stuff that commonly comes up in 2nd or 3rd grade. Kids who are educated well in preschool math often encounter grouping concepts of 10s and 100s even that early, and any kindergarten of 1st grade teacher who isn't at least hinting at the concept of the importance of grouping into 10s is not helping kids with basic concepts they will need.

      I'm not defending the Common Core entirely (which does have some weirdness), nor am I defending a teacher who would mark this problem "wrong" for the wrong reasoning (e.g., you choose D because it's the one with the correct final sum). But I've found a lot of people who object to Common Core exercises don't realize that some exercises are setting up an important pedagogical point to create the steps that will make later learning easier because kids have practice with an underlying concept. Maybe kids don't NEED the underlying concept to solve that particular problem, but they might benefit from it in another circumstance, as here.

      Well, that and other complaints about Common Core come from incompetent teachers or poorly written materials who miss the point. A teacher who marks a child wrong in this problem because the child has simply memorized an addition fact is missing the point of math education (and many primary school teachers are afraid of math and don't understand it). You want kids to get the right answer to a question. If you want to assess whether a child understands grouping into 10s, you could write a better question to assess that.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:45PM (#878292)

    I would like to get a common core textbook so I can see for myself what all the hullabaloo is about, but from prior history with New Math I would be very reserved in accommodating parents' positions. They are not teachers, their training may have been suboptimal and they are driven by religious zeal in combination with virtue signaling when you put them together with other parents.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:32PM (5 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:32PM (#878318) Journal

    I explained the context a bit more in another posted reply, but you have to think about the reasoning of basic elementary arithmetic algorithms to understand why this problem is structured the way it is. (Again, as I said in my other post, I'm NOT defending a teacher who would mark this "wrong" for memorizing the addition fact. If they explicitly want to test grouping, they could have written a better question.)

    If you've spent a little bit of time around preschool and primary math classrooms, you'll notice that grouping by 10s is a really important early concept. It's not uncommon when doing a problem like 8+6 with literal physical objects to teach kids to separate 2 off of the pile of 6, group together the 8 and 2 to make a "10" and then place the 4 in a separate group. This is how you explain place value to young children.

    The problem you linked to is trying to test that concept. It's not testing it in a very clear way, but that's what it's trying to do. It's a common exercise kids have been doing probably ever since base 10 was invented, but the way it is presented and discussed here, it sounds like a really abstract idea. It is not, if you expect kids to understand place value.

    Once you see how that grouping works, you can move on to a problem like 28+36. Kids at that point will need to know that the last digits will add to 14, but they can separate off that 10 (which they learned to group together before) in order to "carry" it to the next digit. If they don't understand it's a "10" rather than a "tick mark" they magically add to the next digit, they don't actually understand what they are doing and could make errors. Furthermore, this type of grouping teaches patterns that will later become useful for faster math computation, like recognizing that in 28+36, you could take 2 away from the 36 and turn the problem into 30+34. That may seem "advanced" or even "developmentally inappropriate" until you realize that preschool kids and kindergarten kids are frequently shown groups of objects and asked to put them into 10s. The can extend that knowledge of physical objects to start working with written numbers.

    Again, I don't necessarily agree with the Common Core approaches entirely, and this question is clearly written (and especially graded) poorly. But this type of thing is trying to build off of basic intuition of 10s groupings that little kids should be taught for all sorts of reasons.

    • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday August 10 2019, @06:11PM (4 children)

      by Sulla (5173) on Saturday August 10 2019, @06:11PM (#878373) Journal

      My problem is not with grouping, as I use that method to teach my four year olds multiples and to break down numbers easier. My primary problem is the teacher marking it wrong for not writing It correctly.

      --
      Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:20PM (3 children)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:20PM (#878502) Journal

        Yep. And as I said, I agree with that criticism. But that isn't a problem with the Common Core curriculum necessarily -- it's a problem with bad teachers who don't understand math and don't understand the reasons why we do certain things the way we do them.

        My experience in reviewing Common Core math materials is that many of them are trying to create more possible strategies for students to do problems effectively. Instead, what you sometimes see are teachers trying to force all students to use a SPECIFIC strategy even if that one makes less sense to that student in that particular problem. (Or, they force a particular approach when the question is ambiguous or poorly written as is true in this case.) That's completely antithetical to good math education, which should teach a pluralistic approach to problem-solving.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:15AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:15AM (#878693)

          As an actual pedagogy professional, I'd like to point out a few things related to your points. 1. Most complaints people have of the "Common Core" are not actually problems with the Common Core or its Standards, but actually with the adopted curriculum. 2. Most people would not recognize the Standards if they even saw them. 3. There is no "Common Core Curriculum" as every person can (and should) implement their own while still following said Standards. 4. Bad materials existed before, and will exist after, the creation of the Common Core. 5. There have been at least two decades of research in learning since most people have been the grades in question, and just because you learned something a particular way, does not make it the best way. 6. Children and adults learn differently; a 6-year-old child is not capable of abstract reason from first principles nor from exemplars, they need to use a process called "gradual release" for new concepts from concrete examples. 7. You may disagree with the methods, but children are learning most math concepts concepts at least 1 grade level earlier than they did 30 years ago; for example, you have kindergartners subtracting and 3rd graders multi-digit multiplying. 8. The reason for that is because other fundamental concepts are introduced as they come into play in an age-appropriate fashion, such as: grouping, base theory, identity functions, inverse functions, even set theory, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, and number dimensionality. 9. Just because you've internalized an idea to the point it is second nature or ignore it because the calculator does it for you, doesn't mean it isn't important to know or practice when you are learning.

          Ultimately, it is the concepts that are important. For example, too many people my age cannot do division because they were "drilled and killed" with math facts or used rote memorization or assisted calculation of answers instead of integration of concepts. Everyone learns differently, everybody takes a unique approach to things. What stays the same is the concepts. If you master those, you can do anything; if you don't you cannot handle new situations. Now that I think of it, many of the complaints with "Common Core" are a failure of the parents. If they really did learn what they claim, they could adapt to the new material and that they can't shows they didn't, but rather their own particular method. So yes, sometimes (many times, TBH, for some of the older, untested CC curricula) the curriculum in question is bad. However, sometimes (many times, TBH) the problem is the parent's own inflexibility in applying the underlying concepts in a new manner.

          Boy, that sort of turned into a rant, but that is because teaching is probably the most criticized profession because everyone thinks it is so easy. Yes, knowing the material, being prepared to teach a concept, teaching in an appropriate manner for your student, being flexible to necessary changes, keeping your classroom safe and under control, maintaining a growth mindset in your student, having and implementing appropriate expectations, making sure your students are properly socializing, keeping your students in an engaging environment, maintaining necessary real life connections, keeping yourself sane, dealing with material availability and budgets, dealing with less-than-ideal (if not outright sabotaging) home situations, dealing with parental expectations, and keeping up with the latest pedagogical research are all simple on their own. But try doing it in a classroom of 30+ students where all the situations feed off of each other in an escalating fashion while working 10 hour days with only one thirty minute break, plus some extra time on the weekends, and only making enough money to be eligible for public assistance with a 3-month hole where most kids not only stop learning but actively forget what they just spent the last 9 learning.

          • (Score: 1) by metallurge on Monday August 12 2019, @02:47AM (1 child)

            by metallurge (1093) on Monday August 12 2019, @02:47AM (#879034)
            I certainly appreciate your distinction between standard (Common Core) and implementation (specific curriculum), and it's a very fair and useful observation. I have no specific experience with Common Core as a standard, but I can't imagine anything as vetted as it was would be horrible. If anything I'd suspect it is watered down rather than too rigorous, just from my knowledge of the way groups of people build consensus. But I do have a bone to pick with you about your #5.

            There have been at least two decades of research in learning since most people have been the grades in question, and just because you learned something a particular way, does not make it the best way.

            Mathematics has been being successfully taught for a very very long time now. Like thousands of years, no joke. My public-school mathematics textbooks from my schooling in the late '70s and early '80s were at best printed in two colors, were ancient, had been rebound at least once, and were perfectly suitable for the task in the hands of the excellent teachers I had. I was taught well enough to a) skip first semester calculus at Carnegie Mellon on the basis of demonstrated proficiency and b) twenty years later teach high school algebra and precalculus from memory using what I myself learned back in the day, with no refresher.

            More generally, we (our society) built suitable-for-purpose propeller and jet aircraft, reasonably efficient internal combustion engines and cars and dams and the entire industrialized world with slide rules and log tables and competent mathematical education. We put men on the moon with freaking slide rules and log tables and competent mathematical education. We built atomic bombs and atomic reactors with slide rules and log tables and competent mathematical education. I'm sorry, but "two decades of recent research" has a very very very high hurdle of actual practical experience to overcome. People in their essence haven't changed in the last two decades. The subject matter at the grade levels in play hasn't changed in the last two decades (except for statistics, which are taught earlier [I very much approve] but are still not taught well). The bar for new mathematics curriculum is very high, or ought to be. I'll take the curriculum and teaching methods I had over most anything I have seen in the last twenty years (RIP John Saxon). I have taught and tutored some of the casualties of today's curriculum and methods. It's, to me, shocking. We, as a society, are going to be paying a price for our math-ed hubris for many years to come. And the freaking curriculum companies will keep on making their millions.

            As a disclaimer, I know that I am not typical. That said, I had no leg up in my mathematical education besides innate ability. My parents were language teachers but neither of them were particularly mathematically fluent. One of them, to the day they died, could not grasp negative numbers. I grew up in a rural midwestern school district, and went to an ordinary midwestern public school system that was big enough but not too big.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:46PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:46PM (#880740)

              I wrote a long post that was eaten by the snapshot restore. Suffice to say, it was basically explaining that I didn't mean to insinuate all the new methods are the best either. Sometimes the old works, sometimes the new works, what matters is what the research shows. The two biggest biases in education are the survivorship bias and confirmation bias. But, there are plenty of RCT, longitudinal, and pre-registered studies about what works best in the aggregate, as well as the same on proper differentiation and interventions. Basically, don't throw out the old if it isn't broken, but also remember that sometimes the old is broken.