Predictable Results from a New New Math Program

June 17, 2004

Theory over Practice is one of the most pernicious aspects of most failed education reform efforts. We've said it before, but it bears repeating:

If someone wanted to learn how to grow corn in Iowa, or build a bridge over a windy channel, or navigate a corporation through the waters of Chapter 11, or design a really absorbent diaper . . . the first step would be to speak to the people who've been successful at those very things!

This should be painfully obvious to anyone outside the Education field.

But we educators are special. We know better than to learn from history, or if we do look at history, it is only through a fun-house mirror, which gets things backwards, but makes us feel good about what we're doing to our hapless students.

Kids failing at reading? We should find out what the theorists say about that. Students unable to do basic math? Let's use a newfangled program based on the latest theories!

Rarely do you see the approach that works for the rest of the world, which is to ask the folks currently enjoying success how they're doing it. Most people are more than happy to share.

Thus we have this story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Alarmed by what they consider low scores on state achievement tests, Germantown School Board members are pushing district administrators for answers and action.

Now their most recent scores aren't terrible--77% of their eighth graders are proficient in math--but their scores have dropped over ten points from this time last year.

This might lead one to ask what they did differently in the past year.

The district also began a math program at the middle school this year that uses a different method of instruction. The program, known as Connected Math, uses more hands-on activities than traditional programs and emphasizes problem-solving over rote memorization of facts and formulas.

While we see a smoking gun, Germantown officials see the solution to their math problems.

We are not making this up.

Connected Mathematics is yet another in a long line of math programs that was based not upon what's been proven to work in the classroom, but on wonderful theories. These come from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), sponsored by the theory-philic National Science Foundation, which has shown an alarming tendancy to not know anything about teaching math. (Next time, we'll explore a little of what is so bad about Connected Mathematics and programs like it.)

Time after time, NCTM-based programs have been measured and found lacking in comparison with more rigorous, time-tested, and proven-effective ones, such as Singapore Math or Saxon Math.

And time after time, these NCTM programs are the first things suggested when someone starts banging the "we need to raise our math scores" drum, as in the Germantown story above.

When will we learn?