Parents mad over new math curriculum

Thursday, November 24 @ 00:00:30

They’re not exactly counting on their fingers, but some parents in the Alpine School District are taking math into their own hands.

The district has implemented Investigations in Number, Data, and Space,
a math program officials say satisfies the state’s requirements and
teaches students “basic number facts.”

The curriculum uses a practice called “debriefing,” during which students share their methods for solving math problems, and the class then discusses that method. Traditional methods for solving a problem are acceptable, but other methods are allowed, as well.

But parents say the curriculum does not teach children multiplication tables or long division and leaves students unprepared for higher education and careers. Some parents are turning to homeschool, charter schools and private schools for the math instruction they say their children need.

“Kids are going through the whole education process and not being able to do any math in their head whatsoever,” said Kristine Hall of Pleasant Grove, whose children attend school in the district.

Oak Norton of American Fork, the father of four children, has gathered 810 signatures on a petition opposing Investigations math and supporting more traditional math instruction. The petition is available online at www.oaknorton.com.

He became alarmed about the math curriculum when he found out his daughter was not being taught multiplication tables in the third grade, he said.

“Everybody needs to know how to multiply.”

He also was in disbelief when he saw his daughter drawing 120 circles on a piece of paper, and then crossing out 30 at a time to divide 120 by 30, he said. “Really what’s happening is they’re falling way behind where their peers are at who are learning the standard traditional math methods that we’ve learned as kids.”

Of the 756 petition signers who live in the Alpine School District, 60 percent said they were considering removing their child from traditional public schools because of the math instruction, and planning to either home school their children or enroll them in charter or private schools.

Norton said he believes teachers are afraid of losing their jobs if they give traditional math instruction in their classrooms. At an October meeting, he asked the Board of Education to reassure teachers that was not the case. In November, the board released a statement saying traditional math instruction is welcome in Alpine School District classrooms, in an effort to achieve a “balanced approach.”

The statement, which is posted on the district’s Web site, says traditional math is being blended with Investigations. “The initial implementation of Investigations, a program grounded in promoting deeper, comprehensive student understanding of math concepts, was advocated broadly as a single math program,” the statement reads.
“Subsequent to its implementation, adjustments have been made to move from using Investigations as the sole instructional program to a continuum that includes elements of a traditional system.”

But Norton said that policy could create incongruity between teaching method used in different grades could leave a child confused.

Shannon Cannon of Eagle Mountain said Investigations math was the catalyst for her and her husband’s decision to homeschool their five children. Her daughter, who was in the first grade, did well in math until Investigations was implemented, she said. “She just got more and more confused and just lost confidence in it.”

After receiving traditional math instruction at home, her daughter is beginning to regain her enthusiasm for math, Cannon said. “She feels like she can do it again. She’s not confused anymore. It took some time before she felt like it was something she was up for.”

Hall said her disgust with the way her children were learning math led her to begin giving them traditional math instruction at home. Their homework under the Investigations curriculum was “stupid” and “inane,” she said. “Every single day it was counting. They didn’t learn really any addition.”

So she began buying math books and doing her own instruction. “I had to because they weren’t learning anything. They weren’t learning the stuff they need to know. This math that they’re doing is really wrong.”

Anna Chang-Yen can be reached at 344-2549 or annac@heraldextra.com.