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Now, the Beaufort County School District is moving away from that type of elementary school math education to a controversial method called "Everyday Mathematics."
Basically, Everyday Math, a K-6 curriculum developed by the University of Chicago School of Mathematics, uses a method called "spiraling," where a teacher spends just a few days on a topic and moves on. Classes come back to the topic later and build on the information learned. The program also relies heavily on learning games and alternative methods that are often foreign to parents. Students don't learn solely by repetition, but by building on concepts and problem-solving skills.
Everyday Math "is new to me," Nan Faciszewski said at a recent Math Night at Okatie Elementary, where her daughter, fourth-grader McCall attends school. "It's just hard when you learned one way and you're trying to help them with it."
Everyday Math has been criticized nationwide, both from parents who don't understand some of the teaching methods used, and mathematicians who say students who are taught by that method simply don't learn the basics.
But district officials say strong test scores in Bluffton schools, the only group of schools in the district where the program is fully implemented, prove the program works.
IMPLEMENTATION
The school district's move to Everyday Math is part of a larger effort to make sure there is academic consistency throughout the district. Over the course of the next four years, the district will standardize the programs and textbooks for core subjects, ensuring each school is using the same program, according to Mary Seamon, chief instructional officer.
The decision to use Everyday Math was swift. The text wasn't scheduled for mandatory review until 2009-2010 by the S.C. Department of Education. The district petitioned the department to adopt the third edition text early, Seamon said.
"We deemed it a crisis," said Seamon. "In one of the most important courses for basic skills, we're having high numbers of our students not meeting basic standards. ... We cannot send our graduates out into the world without basic math skills. We have to make sure we give them the best shot at doing the technical jobs there are today."
PLUSES AND MINUSES
Traditional math programs spend weeks on a particular topic before moving on. Everyday Math introduces basic concepts behind topics like probability at a young age, and returns to build on them frequently. For example, students in first or second grade start learning about probability when a teacher puts objects in a bag and asks students to think about which item he or she might pull out.
Many mathematicians believe the method prevents students from ever fully mastering a concept.
"There's a tendency not to expect mastery at any certain point," said David Klein, a mathematics professor at University of California Northridge, who has not taught at the elementary level. "In some situations, they (students) never really get it. There's no point where the job is done and now we go on to the next one."
Andy Isaacs, co-author and director of the third edition of the Everyday Mathematics textbook, argues that the traditional way of spending weeks on a single topic does not help children learn.
"A fair amount of the mathematicians who criticize our program don't know beans about the psychology of learning," he said.
Isaacs, who taught elementary math near Chicago for seven years, used the analogy of a child practicing piano. Students should practice 15 minutes a day over the course of a week to learn a song, rather than spend an hour and 45 minutes on it in just one day.
Isaacs says in Everyday Math, that concept is represented by spending just a few days on a topic and coming back to it later, which ensures that concepts become part of a student's long-term memory.
Joseph Merlino, project director of the Math Science Partnership of Greater Philadelphia, said professors who are critical of Everyday Math are too harsh. Merlino said most elementary teachers do not hold doctorates in mathematics, but if they are provided with adequate training, he said, the Everyday Math program works.
"It's very easy for male, elite math professors to bully (elementary) math teachers," he said.
Seamon is not concerned with criticisms of the program. Nothing, she said, can ever be perfect.
"With any program, you can have as many pros and cons as possible," she said. "This is substantiated by the schools in our area that are using it."
TEST SCORES
According to the district's 2007 state report card, almost 30 percent of students scored "below basic" in mathematics on the Palmetto Challenge Achievement Tests. Students need to score above basic for the district to meet the requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act.
District officials point to strong PACT scores in Bluffton schools as proof that Everyday Math works. District math coordinator Maryanne Rizzi and academic improvement officer Kathleen Corley provided results that show schools using Everyday Math achieved the following on the 2007 PACT exams:
• 41 percent of fourth-graders at Bluffton Elementary, 36 percentat M.C. Riley Elementary and 43 percent at Okatie Elementary are scoring proficient and advanced, or above basic, on the state-required exams.
• At the fifth-grade level, 36 percent at Bluffton Elementary, 35 percent at M.C. Riley and 27 percent at Okatie scored above basic.
But, only 6 percent of third-graders at Whale Branch Elementary using Everyday Math are receiving above basic scores. And at Mossy Oaks Elementary, 38 to 56 percent of third- through fifth-graders are scoring above basic without Everyday
Math.
Corley, however, said that's because 97 percent of Whale Branch students are on the free or reduced lunch program, while at Mossy Oaks, only 38 percent of kids receive the same help. Free and reduced lunch programs are indicators of the amount of poverty in a school.
"Unfortunately, that has a whole lot to do with things," Corley said.
She did offer data comparing Bluffton and Hilton Head schools that have similar demographics for at-risk kids to show that Everyday Math works. For example, data shows that in 2007, 33 percent of all students in Bluffton elementary schools receiving free or reduced lunch received proficient and advanced PACT scores.
In Hilton Head elementary schools, where Everyday Math techniques are used sporadically by some but not all teachers, only 23 percent of students receiving free or reduced lunched earned proficient and advanced PACT scores.
In 2004, those numbers were even further apart: 31 percent of kids on free or reduced lunch in Bluffton schools were proficient and advanced in math, while at Hilton Head schools only 15 percent of kids receiving free or reduced meals earned proficient or advanced scores.
Rizzi added that teachers at Whale Branch have not had training in Everyday Math, which all teachers will get in a week-long class this summer. In order for the program to be successful, she said, teachers must have training.
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
There will also be efforts to introduce the program to parents. Math nights, like those at Okatie Elementary, will be
common.
"If you're a parent and you're not used to this, you'd go, 'What in the world is this?' " said Corley.
Dave Kefford, who also recently attended Math Night at Okatie, found the games fun. His third-grade son, Cameron, loves the games his teachers use, like Robot Delight. The educational night made for great family time.
Kids and parents rolled three dice, and added, subtracted, multiplied and divided them to try to reach numbers printed for them on a sheet of paper laid out similar to bingo. When they reached a number, they marked it off. The first person to block out four in a row won. Cameron said the best part was "solving out all the multipication ... and the strategies to
win."
