Chancellor Harold Levy
Fax:(718) 935-3383
Re:Post Articles
concerning New Math / Week of April 16-19
Dear Mr. Levy:
I am a parent of a District 2 fifth grader. I
think that our personal experience with District 2's math program provides a
sobering insight into the failure of constructivist math for all the district's
children.
Those who have a strong aptitude remain in
the higher percentile, but everyone's ability to compute drops proportionately.
The children who would struggle now face an even greater uphill climb.
We escaped the "whole language"
fiasco because my son learned to read at the age of four. He was interested so
I taught him, using phonics. He was equally adept with numbers.
Transferred after kindergarten to a District
2 school which, unknown to us, was a new math "site" school, he tried
to show his teacher a "faster" (traditional) way to add 12 + 9 on the
blackboard. He was reprimanded and told "We don't do math that way
here." It has been a steady road downhill ever since.
Entering first grade, his ISEE math score was
in the upper 95-100%, by second grade he had dropped over 10%. Although his
public school scores show him in the top ranks in math, without tutoring his
PSAT scores were mid-range. Stanford
Binet tests indicate that his math scores should be in line with his reading
(800 on the fourth grade reading test).
Shelly Harwayne is just dead wrong when she
says "there's nothing in here that's fuzzy math." At fifth grade,
these children cannot multiply anything that cannot be rounded off.
My husband and I both work with computers
(coming from arts backgrounds) and know that the fewer steps involved,
the fewer chances for error. TERC takes just the opposite approach. It is not
clean, it is not simple or elegant, TERC is just plain fuzzy.
While it may be true that 76% of District 2
students meet state standards, the dirty little secret is that our scores are
skewed because parents are resorting to private tutors.
Many parents in schools like PS41, 6 and 234
have the money to pay exhorbitant hourly rates for tutors, superseding
TERC. The percentiles do not reflect the
success of TERC, but rather the financial success of a fairly large portion of
the parent body. There are also many parents for whom this is a financial
burden, but they have resorted to tutoring out of desperation.
If the scores of children who have had
private tutoring in traditional math could be factored out, District 2's scores
would present an altogether different picture.
I would suggest that you take a close look at
the teaching methods of new math, best illustrated by the diagram in the Post
this week. Take a really close look, go to some classrooms, ask some fifth
graders to multiply 36 x 75, or to do a math problem involving decimals or
fractions, but do so as a prospective parent.
Would you put your children into this math program?
District 2 children are a year behind in
instruction compared to most private schools and now, in addition, they are
saddled with a lack of basic math skills.
Mr. Levy, many of us are
stuck. The private schools are full and expensive, we made a commitment to
public school in good faith and now those of us who want out cannot get out.
Class size and math are the two main reasons
parents give when asked why they applied to private schools. It was
enlightening to recently learn that none of the teachers at my son's school
have enrolled their children in public schools.
I ask you to look at this issue not just as
an administrator, but as a parent.
It is confusing when you say that you support
traditional math because it has been repeatedly shown to work, yet you will
allow District 2 to continue with new math. New math has worked well in
District 2 according to administrators and teachers who embrace the theory with
what approaches a cult-like zeal, but talk to the parents.
I attended a meeting at PS 234 last spring
where parents were basically told that being able to add or multiply correctly
was not the way to measure TERC's success. Being close is good enough as long
as you understand the process. I doubt you would find this acceptable for your
children, why should it be for mine? At this meeting, parent after parent, math
professors, computer programmers, teachers from Stuyvesant and NYU spoke of the
failure of constructivist math policies.
The emotional and financial investment
District 2 has made to new math should not outweigh the interests of the
children. Please do not rely on a
commission of experts, or those entrenched in the policies of new math, or
those parents hand-picked for you to meet. Call an open meeting of District 2
parents, be sure to get a very big room, allow an unlimited amount of time, and
you will get quite a different picture of how well things are going.
Sincerely,
Susan Erlanger
NYC