E-mail exchange with Barry

**************************** Oak to Barry

8/7/05

Hi Barry,
I dropped off the book and DVD's to your new office Friday. I got 30 of the video though I think that's a couple extra beyond what was needed for the middle and high schools. Please be sure to give one to John (stats guy) and David Cox. The book I got you is excellent. I've been reading through my copy and Mr. Hirsch has some excellent information. Chapter 5, part 6 (I think that's it) shows where all the major educational studies that have been performed have a common set of characteristics about the best way to teach so kids learn. I hope you'll read it as you said you would and be open minded to changing the system to follow the best practices of what the educational studies show. There may not be a silver bullet, but there's some bullets with a lot more silver in them than others. :)

I have one other question. I was wondering what the district policy is toward principals and teachers. If previous to implementing Investigations all principals had choice and discretion as to what to implement for a math program, if a principal wanted to "defect" from the program and switch to something else that met the state standards, would they be reprimanded or blackballed for sort of breaking rank and going on their own again?

Thanks,

Oak

**************************** Barry to Oak

8/9/05

Hi, Oak! I hope I haven't worried you about my non-response to your gift. We are in the midst of moving into new offices. I was unpacking a box and thought, "What is this? I don't remember packing this." Then I noticed your stuff. So here is an official "Thank You" from me. We'll get the DVDs distributed right away with some possible uses and times listed. Also, thanks for the book. Is it a loan, or am I free to keep it? (I don't mean to be tacky - just wondering). On another topic, I do feel really bad about our meeting. I must say that after we finished, I felt like I had blown the meeting by being too vociferous about my points - for that I apologize. The one thing that was clear to me is that you and I believe in the same thing - rigor and the best for our students - let's keep that as our common goal and keep working on how that might look. Hope things are going well for you and your family. Thanks again for the DVDs. Barry

**************************** Oak to Barry

8/9/05

Thanks for the note Barry and you're welcome. The book is yours to keep. I actually tried emailing you last week but the email address I got from one of the secretaries bounced back so I'm glad you emailed me.

On the DVD's please make sure that John (stats guy) and David Cox each get one. The other 28 are for the schools as we discussed.

The book is yours to keep. I bought one for myself and have been reading it (though not necessarily from front to back). Chapter 5 part 6 is a great section on education studies that have been performed and what their findings are, but really the whole book seems excellent.

I do hope you don't feel like I'm being overbearing about this subject. I do want to keep good lines of communication with you, even though I may appear to be at odds with you over the Investigations program. I'm just going from what I believe is the best for our kids. One disturbing quote I recently noticed is from a member of the NSF. He wrote an article in 1994 (and he's still on the "expert panel" of the NSF) and said this:

"It's time to recognize that, for many students, real mathematical power, on the one hand, and facility with multidigit, pencil-and-paper computational algorithms, on the other, are mutually exclusive. In fact, it's time to acknowledge that continuing to teach these skills to our students is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive and downright dangerous." (http://www.edweek.org/ew/1994/20lein.h13)

So according to at least one of the dozen members on the panel, teaching standard math algorithms is "dangerous" to our children. Funny how I've never felt I was in any danger as an adult and had to call on those algorithms thousands of times. I guess maybe we should look into purchasing insurance for our kids if it's that bad. :) Seriously though, I hope you don't agree with him on this even though he's one of the major proponents of the math programs our district is using.

I have one other question for you. Since before Investigations was implemented all the principals ran their own programs for math within their schools and they had choice as to what to implement, if a principal wanted to again choose a different program and pay for the switch from their budget, would they be reprimanded or blackballed for sort of breaking rank with the district or would they be allowed to do it?

Thanks,

Oak

**************************** Barry to Oak

8/10/05

Oak,

We've always made clear to schools that they can use their own textbook money they way they see fit - including math. Thanks for the book. I'll look forward to continuing our communication and relationship we've developed.

Barry

**************************** Oak to Barry

8/10/05

Thanks for the info Barry. A couple of other questions arise from this.

1) Have the individual schools, or the district, been purchasing the needed Investigations materials each year for the last few years? I know you said the district purchased everything the first year, but whatabout after that?

2) Do the schools still have the same level of budget available to purchase textbooks as they did from before the switch to Investigations? ie. if the district has been purchasing materials, have the individual school budgets been reduced or do they have the same amount available as they used to if they were on a different curriculum?

Oak

**************************** Barry to Oak

8/10/05

1) Yes, we buy for growth. As schools add more kids, we'll buy any extra materials they need. We also do all the printing (through Kinkos) for the schools - homework, ten minute math, worksheets, etc, etc. If schools who have not adopted it up to this point decide to use the materials, we'll still buy them for the school.

2) The schools have the same textbook budget they've always had (I'm assuming it's gone up a bit since I was a principal, as inflation has gone up - I don't really have anything to do with schools getting these budgets, so I am guessing). When I was a principal, it seems we got about $13 or $14 per student for textbooks per year - average textbook is probably somewhere between $30 and $40 for elementary texts - not including supplements like blackline masters, practice books, workbooks, etc.

BG

**************************** Barry to Oak

8/15/05

Oak,

I wanted to alert you to some misinformation you've got out on your
website. I don't want anyone to be able to accuse you of not being
forthright in your representations. Nebo is not a Saxon district.
They use Houghton Mifflin K-5 and in the words of their curriculum
director are "all over the place with junior high materials."
However, they do not use Saxon. I've had that verified by two
curriculum directors over there. A Seth Sorenson has apparently been
in contact with you via email and has also represented that Nebo is
not a Saxon district. As they said to me, "No, we don't use it, it
is not an approved curriculum."

The data you share on your website - Nebo and Alpine charts - is a
complete misrepresentation. You'll recall that I told you that our
default math in Alpine for 7th grade is pre-algebra. A much harder
test than Math 7. You will notice on the chart I gave you that we
have about 400 kids take math 7 out of the thousands of 7th graders
we have. Those 400 kids represent special education students who
take the Math 7 as an alternative test - it's an easy test. In Nebo,
their default for 7th grade is - guess what? - Math 7. We offer a
more rigorous course and have our students take a more rigorous test.
Didn't it seem odd to you that only 400 Alpine kids took Math 7 when
we are at least twice as big as Nebo? Look at 6th grade and you'll
get a better understanding of where we stand in relation to Nebo.
Oak, if you are going to use data to make a point - make sure you
understand what you are representing - I know you would not purposely
fail to be forthright with people on purpose - you're an honest guy.

I also wonder why you've only got data from Nebo and Alpine on your
website. I would recommend the addition of Davis and Jordan, at
least, which both have higher SES than we do. I know you are a fair
guy and wouldn't purposely misrepresent what others have shared with
you.

Hope this clarification helps. I would be happy to have you sit down
with John - our research guy - to help you understand the data.

Oak, I don't want you to think that I'm trying to show that Alpine is
perfect. We are not. We have areas we need to work on, and I'm the
first to admit it. But Oak, I want you to be fair. That's all I'm
asking. By the way, John is delighted in the DVD and sends a hearty
thank you your way.

BG

**************************** Oak to Barry

8/15/05

Barry, you are absolute correct that I'm a fair guy and I will try to quickly put together a correction email to send to my list and post to my website. Thank you for pointing out this additional information and please always point out where I have errors on my information because first and foremost, I recognize that I have to be a credible witness for what I'm espousing, and though I'm new at doing this investigative research, I have genuinely tried to be careful in what I've done. I also hope you don't mind but I'm going to post our email exchange so people can see exactly what you've pointed out and how I've responded. If you have a problem with that please let me know.

When I started researching Investigations Math back in April-May, it was not with the intent to fight it, it was to learn what I could about what others were saying and also to conduct a poll to see why so many parents had negative feelings toward the program since our school principal had told me what wonderful research had been done toward promoting this program. What I learned in my research was that there were no valid scientific studies and there were many respected professional educators completely against these programs. That's what convinced me to *fight* the program and seek a change.

I must admit after our first meeting I was a bit disappointed thinking that you were completely set in your ways and that the meeting had been mostly fruitless. You repeated told David and I that there's no silver bullet curriculum and that you are patching Investigations Math to plug the holes it has. I *mostly* agree there's no silver bullet curriculum. However, from an integrity standpoint, it's a lot better to have a product without so many holes to begin with because even if you plug the holes, it will never be as strong as a product that was forged more solid to begin with. I still have hopes that you can be open minded to some of the findings in E.D. Hirsch's book. If you look at the last paragraph on page 131, after outlining what all the true scientific educational studies have found, you will see Mr. Hirsch declare, "But in fact, Saxon's approach is reasonably close to what research is telling us about how students learn--much closer, as I shall show in Section 6 of this chapter, than are the progressive methods advocated by the NCTM." I truly hope you will read that book with an open mind and sincerely look at the real evidence put forth that would support a switch to Saxon or something like it. I have been receiving emails from a variety of sources about parents putting their children into charter schools and their children are being put 1-2 years behind in their math (as I might add Dr. Schmid from Harvard predicted). I am also expecting an email from a teacher in another school district that as children enter their district from districts, says that those from Investigations type schools are always playing catch up. One parent of a 6th grader in the ALL program says her child hasn't even learned long division, something I learned in 4th grade 30 years ago as I would expect you did as well.

In my defense, let me say that the initial numbers you handed me at our meeting were so skewed for the 7th grade in favor of Nebo, that I had to call their district and have Seth Sorenson give me some corrected figures FOR ALPINE. You actually had Alpine with 42% in level 1 (failing) and 27% in level 4, while Nebo was 9% in level 1 and over 70% in level 4. I saw it was pretty bad looking for you, so I went the extra mile to be fair and get Nebo to verify it and in doing that got new better numbers for Alpine which Seth read off the state COGNOS site, I believe. I also didn't notice the participant numbers and really didn't pay attention because when Seth corrected your figures, I thought they were much more believable since the upward pattern between levels was basically the same, just that Alpine was not as good as Nebo.

As for Saxon not being in Nebo, I'm not sure now where I got that information from since I was sure that was it. Regardless, the curriculum they are using is not a "new math" method and goes back to what everyone calls "traditional" math teaching so I will correct it though I don't really see a big difference between the two.

Now let me ask a few questions so I better understand a few things.

1) Why do you feel the 6th grade is more representative of the comparison between Alpine and Nebo when grades 1-5 all show Nebo with higher math mastery? It *seems* to me that in looking at the 6th grade would be a fluke and perhaps attributable to other factors if the 5 prior grades were in Nebo's favor all building to that grade level. Are you suggesting that after 5 years of lower performance the 6th year is when Investigations math reaps its benefits??? :)

2) You said in a prior email that ASD is still paying for Investigations materials for the schools each year. If ASD is paying for I-Math materials, would ASD then be willing to help pay for other math materials for schools that want to switch to something else? If not, why?

3) If the school district spent $600,000 out of the "leeway" fund to pilot this program, that seems like an enormous risk when this program was relatively young. Why did the school district risk such a huge investment from a "rainy-day" fund instead of just suggesting to a few principals that they might consider trying the program and the district would help them get started on it. It seems very odd...

4) How much money was in the "leeway" fund when $600,000 was taken out to pay for the initial investment in Investigations Math? (and approximately what date was it taken out)

5) How much money is in the fund now?

Again, thanks for pointing out the mistakes and I'll get a correction up asap.

Sincerely,

Oak

**************************** Barry to Oak

Hi, Oak,

Thanks for your response and your validation. I appreciate it. I've
responded to some of your questions below and I'll do the same for
you other email.

Just a quick update on the DVDs. Glen Clark, our secondary guy is
sending the DVDs out to the schools with a cover letter offering some
possible times and circumstances for use of the movie - including
Constitution Day (that is an easy date to remember - my birthday).
We really appreciate your help on this. If we get comments and such
from schools on what they've done, how excited they are, etc., I'll
forward those on to you.

BG

Question Responses

Answer 1)
No, I only choose sixth because that is the last place where Alpine and Nebo would be similar in course offerings - in other words, the same curriculum. Because our default in 7th is pre-algebra - you can't compare 7th scores. Sixth is as close as you can be to seventh if you want to compare Alpine and Nebo's 7th grade achievement. Beyond 7th, course taking patterns lose uniformity by grade level and are more dependent on individual circumstances and goals. I do think it is odd that you see as a problem that Alpine's scores overtake Nebo's in higher level math as you move up the spectrum. Wasn't your contention that our students would not be ready for higher level math (algebra) because of Investigations?

Answer 2)
We send a team up to look over state adopted materials every year looking for anything better that might be offered. We will continue to do that. When (and I do believe it will be when rather than if) we find materials that we think offers greater access to student understanding, we will use those materials. Aleen Ure, our math director can tell you about what we've been up to look at.

Now for the second part of your question - which is a very good question. Before we did district wide adoption we covered the spectrum in materials, programs, approaches, etc. (remember Barratt and their Math Land - that was happening while Shelley was doing Saxon). This leads to problems. When each schools (and often even grades in a school) are teaching from different materials and doing different things, you lose the scope and sequence built into any published material. You can't assume that every materials follows the same pattern, uses the same vocabulary, etc. So you could have a student move from one school to another (which is very common in Alpine) and have gaps in learning because one set of materials was teaching a different sequence than another. Or within a building, one teacher uses a Houghton Mifflin in one grade, another teacher uses Addison Wesley in the next, with their own unique vocabulary and steps for solving problems, (example - "borrow" vs. "regroup") and you lose the efficiency that should be built into a comprehensive math program that builds upon itself each year, for each student, regardless of where he or she is. Now, we are not perfect on that yet. We have about ten schools that chose to not adopt Investigations, and obviously, we have teachers who do what they want and use what they want. However, our philosophy is that whatever materials we buy for schools should be uniform. We do that for literacy and we'll continue to do that for math - whatever we happen to be using. Will we stand in the way of a school that feels strongly about using something else (Forbes would be an example)? No. But we won't facilitate a return to the days of mish mash and inconsistency. There was not a "good old days" in Alpine, when all students were achieving great levels of math proficiency - that's why we looked to do things differently.

Answer 3)
Risk? I don't think so - at least no more risky than other material we are going to begin using that we've never used before. How many published math materials out there have been field tested in a control setting? NSF has one of the most rigorous field testing and research protocols you'll find (ask anyone you know in the hard sciences at BYU who has submitted for an NSF grant). You don't find field tested material for elementary level curriculum. If anything, using materials with no field testing would be the risk (which we do all the time, by the way, because of the paucity of that kind of material... a wing and a prayer). Remember what I told you about how this got started? It was proposed to be a pilot with six or eight schools. Remember all the principals that wanted to be involved and how it was decided to expand the pool to any interested? I won't speak for the wisdom of bringing all those schools on board that first year - you're right, it was odd - we should have started with six or eight and brought on another six or eight each year. See, Oak, you and I do see eye to eye... ;-)

Thanks, Oak. I'm sure we'll be talking again sometime. Next time, let's talk about something we can both cheer about - maybe BYU football? I do have hopes for this year - enough to possibly consider getting season tickets again...

Answer 4)
Each year there is $600,000 in the leeway fund (this was a voted leeway passed by taxpayers back in the late 90s, I believe) for district text purchases (which is not the same as the fund which pays for the schools' textbook funds that we talked about the other day - that money is M&O - maintenance and operation - which is the budget that pays for teaching and learning). I think when we started that first year - the balance of the amount beyond the $600,000 came out of the M&O fund through our annual budget process . For exact numbers and such, you can call Jim Hansen, our budget director (756-8480) - I'm sure he's got the numbers you are looking for.

Answer 5)
Every year, we start with $600,000. It is not a static account. All of our budgets start over each year. If we didn't do that we would run out of money after one year of operation.

**************************** Oak to Barry

Hi Barry,

First of all let me clarify that one of the great highlights of my college career was sitting inside an institute building in Logan, Utah and watching Utah State trump BYU in a high scoring offensive game about a dozen years ago. So I wish you and the Cougars well, except when they play the Aggies. :)

Now let me respond to a couple of your points from the questions you responded to.

Q1) Yes my contention is that Investigations does not prepare children for higher level math. The problem I had with the scores as I was comparing was that Nebo actually had NO scores for one of the classes and skewed results on some of the others that didn't seem reasonable. As I mentioned before, your 7th grade scores were pitiful and so I was really confused as to what was going on once I passed 6th grade. When I contacted Seth Sorenson, he got me numbers that were believable (in that they tracked with Nebo's shape) for Alpine's 7th grade and explained that the state had accidentally destroyed a lot of the Nebo exams so their scores in the higher levels were based on partial-to-no information.

Q2) I agree that within a school itself when multiple teachers are using different curriculum, it is going to lead to problems. Within a district, I believe as you seem to, that it's not a problem for different schools to use different methodologies for teaching. I am encouraged that you feel it is a matter of "when" and not "if" there will be a change. I don't know if you realize it or not, but the charter schools in this area all have waiting lists for parents that want to get their children into the schools. The internal polls the charter schools are conducting all say the #1 reason is the curriculum. Parents are tired of the time wasted by their children having to construct their own math learning instead of being taught by the teachers and in the Charter schools, most of them are using E.D. Hirsch's core curriculum for their subject matter. I think based on what I'm reading in Hirsch's book and website, that that's the way we ought to go. He's done the research and says Saxon math is right in line with what all the major studies say is the very best way to teach kids (though he does give a couple of other superior alternatives). Something else may come along and wind up being better at some point, but I really think if the district moved in that direction you would end all disputes over the math situation. Have you ever known another set of curriculum to cause so much disagreement with parents than Investigations, Connected Math, and Interactive Math?

You mention that even after implementing Investigations, you still have teachers who do what they want and use what they want to teach with. I am aware that several teachers and even principals have been fired for not teaching or pushing the Investigations and other district math curricula once implemented. Are there some reasons you can give as to why they were fired?

Q3) You state that the NSF has one of the most rigorous field testing protocols out there, and yet over 200 of the top math professors in the country and 7 Nobel Laureates decry the NSF and tell them to "withdraw the entire list of 'exemplary' and 'promising' mathematics curricula, for further consideration, and to announce that withdrawal to the public." Then these people slam the NSF and say, "We further urge you to include well-respected mathematicians in any future evaluation of mathematics curricula conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. Until such a review has been made, we recommend that school districts not take the words 'exemplary' and 'promising' in their dictionary meanings, and exercise caution in choosing mathematics programs." These programs include our three math programs and these PhD's in math were disgusted that two of the curricula didn't teach division by fractions and another didn't teach the standard method for doing multiplication. So unfortunately I have no respect for the NSF at this point.

So are you a soccer fan??? :)

Oak

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