Sunroom Desk

Our introduction to first grade math in the Glendale Unified School District began with the teacher’s request that parents drill students on addition facts at home. Our introduction to second grade math began with the same request by the second grade teacher. At the start of third grade, the teacher told parents many students hadn’t mastered subtraction facts and asked that they go over them at home. And at the start of fourth grade, we heard that many students hadn’t mastered multiplication facts and needed additional drilling. These were all “Back to School Night” speeches.

The Glendale Unified School District has used the University of Chicago’s Everyday Mathematics curriculum for several years, and I’ve objected to it from the time my second-grader brought home math homework that I couldn’t figure out myself. The second grade assignment was actually a division problem which required drawing an array and circling the correct portion of it.

Why were second graders being exposed to the concept of division, and being asked to draw an ordered set of symbols, when they hadn’t even mastered addition and subtraction, and didn’t have the highly developed motor skills required for evenly drawing arrays and defining subsets of them?

I later met with the third grade and then the fourth grade teacher, and our school principal, and each of them explained to me that the purpose behind rapid switches in math concepts from week to week was to expose the student to key mathematics concepts, as opposed to having them master those concepts. “Exposure” not “mastery” was the goal. I was upset. “Counterintuitive” is too nice a word for this approach to teaching basic math.

My child learned many basic math facts at home – including subtraction with borrowing, and long division – while struggling through a school curriculum that jumped around from addition to division to percentages to means and medians, never sticking to one subject long enough for the average student to master it.

Now the Glendale Unified School District is grappling with the State Department of Education’s mandate that students complete a full year of Algebra by the end of 8th Grade, a decision recently put on hold after a suit filed by The California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. Many school boards, including Glendale’s, believe this sets up students for failure. I agree, and I personally heard of many students who were discouraged when they tried to take algebra in the 8th grade.

Let students take algebra when they are ready, while offering all the advanced math classes and excellent primary preparation possible. However, whether the suit fails or succeeds, the district should replace the current math curriculum which sets Glendale’s students up for a struggle with advanced math concepts.