Conference Material

Engaging Parents and the Public

And the last myth. What we are experiencing now is the result of a huge public groundswell in opposition to the NCTM standards based reform efforts. I don't believe it is a huge groundswell. I had a really interesting opportunity to look at that. Judy, I want to say it was three or four years ago now when the Math Renaissance asked me to come down and work with parents in one of their communities. And we talked carefully about what community it should be.

And the community I chose was Riverside. And I chose it purposefully because they had a small group of parents who were organized in opposition to mathematics reform. That community called themselves CUE, Citizens United for Education. And I really believed that we had to start a process of dialogue somewhere.

Interestingly, the next community that I visited was Santa Barbara. And in Santa Barbara, some people stayed after and they were from a group of people called QED. And they were linked electronically with the Citizens United for Education. And the next community I went into was Palo Alto. And they had a group of parents that called themselves HOLD. People for Honest, Open, and Logical Debate. Which is a misnomer if I've ever seen one. And in these communities, people started writing articles.

So after going to Santa Barbara, when I went to Palo Alto, HOLD had a table set up and one of the articles outside was an article called, "So Who Is Dr. Ruth Parker?" And the next district that I went into after Palo Alto was Davis. And Davis had a group that called themselves PACE. Now I don't remember what PACE stood for. But they were electronically linked with the other groups. And the next district that I went into was a district in Orange County. And Orange County had a group called BOLD. And Petaluma had a group of parents. And these groups were very small in numbers, but they were linked electronically and shared information in a way that caused them to be a very powerful force. A force that has been instrumental in bringing about some stunning reversals of math reform efforts in California and are now working quite actively in many other states -- Texas, Washington State and Florida, to name just a few. And they have been very successful in several locations in doing a couple of things. One is in writing standards for mathematics education. And unfortunately these standards are often being written by people removed from education. And they are, in California's case and I would imagine many other places, standards that are based on unrealistic notions of children and learning of mathematics.

They're coupling these standards with ever increasing high stakes norm referenced standardized testing. And as a result, I think many schools today and districts are nervous and quite intimidated by the high stakes nature of the testing. And I have been saddened to see many districts that have put some fairly major efforts into restructuring, shift their focus from providing staff development for teachers to providing the kinds of practices that they're hoping will increase test results on the norm referenced tests.

And as a result, I think we have many communities that are beginning to be even more reluctant to really bring their public to the table. So in this political climate where mathematics education, and I think science education is not far behind, has become politicized, I think we have a critically important task as an educational community to design ways to provide help to educate our parents and our public. And I would suggest to you that parents and our public are a powerful force in determining in what directions schools go. I don't truthfully believe that systems, school systems or school districts, can heal themselves or can take on dramatically new teaching practices on their own. To get from a place of being highly dysfunctional to a place of functioning effectively necessitates that you go through a long period of disequilibrium and confusion. And most every system I've ever known, when the confusion hits, finds a way to bring itself back into a place of greater comfort rather than pushing through what feels like the muck and the challenge of taking on new practices. So I think as an educational community, we have a particular challenge of figuring out, first of all, how to support local leaders -- those teachers and people who live within the community, who can build the relationships of trust over time and provide ongoing opportunities to learn?

But they can't do it by themselves. By default the job of educating parents and the public has fallen on the backs of classroom teachers. And that's not okay. Classroom teachers are already overextended. Most, I think it would be fair to say, have not had the opportunity to get to a depth of understanding of what the real issues are in mathematics teaching and learning. And very few have adequate forums for really working with parents. So I think our particular challenge is to say how do we get those of us, you in this room, who are best prepared, prepared to work with parents and the public. And then how do we find forums that position you to do so.

And I think the challenge that we face is urgent. A lot of us have put a lot of years of our life work into seeing more relevant and more robust mathematics and science education happening for children. And I am absolutely convinced that we won't see it happening on any broad scale until we, as a profession, have taken on the task of educating our parents and engaging with them in support of quality mathematics. And until we have put in place some practices that raise the potential that we will have a public that shares our vision for their children.

I was supposed to stop 20 minutes ago and give you opportunities to talk to each other. So talk to each other at the bar and hors d'oeuvre hour that's following, if you would. And, in the meantime, thank you for your focus. And I will stay for any who are interested in staying and hearing about the assessment piece. So thank you very much and best wishes to you all.

Spresser: There was a point in Ruth's discussion with us that I found myself reflecting back to last evening. And realizing that, in a different context, Ruth too has taken us back to the importance of invoking the structure and values that are intrinsic to a discipline. And the discipline's ways of knowing. So while everybody else at my table was trying to deal with the turkey problem, I was adding doubles and Ruth's sharing methods--

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Spresser: --all the (...inaudible) about the things you know about. And the generalization aspects without which no good mathematics lesson should be left. And like the good teacher and mathematical thinker that she is, Ruth modeled that so well for us. For her rocket scientists in her parents' crowd who want to think in terms of classical symbolic algebra, they have an opportunity. They can write (n+1) x (n-1) = n2-1. Thus demonstrating that the squaring process and subtraction of one works for all. And they can keep that up every time you can share so that the sum of any two numbers, a and b, can be obtained from the sharing method and you see it. Please join me once again in saying to Ruth how much we appreciate her session.

You're now faced with one of the most difficult choices of the afternoon. And that is do you make your way to the cash bar and the hors d'oeuvres or do you stay here with Ruth? I hope you will have an opportunity to do both. [Housekeeping] Thank you very much. We look forward to rejoining you again in the morning.

Parker: I want to share with you the part of my parent session that deals with norm-referenced testing. I actually tell parents that if they care about their children's future and the future health of this nation, then there may be no more important issue for them to pay careful attention to than our current practices around norm-referenced standardized testing. We have developed much better ways of assessing whether children can put mathematics to work in meaningful ways, but what we're currently seeing all over this country is movement away from these performance measures and a big push to make standardized norm-referenced tests more high-stakes than ever before in the history of this nation. I believe one of the greatest travesties to the minds of our children and the future of this nation is our current practices with norm-referenced tests. Let me explain what I mean. A nationally norm-referenced test is normed at the 50th percentile. It's normed so that a typical student working right at grade level where we'd expect them to be working will show up at the 50th percentile with children dispersed to either side of that. Now to norm a test that way, test makers at every grade level put items on the test that are out of reach of most of the children. But they're on the test as an indicator of those children working above grade level. So, for example, on a first grade test, they would put two and three digit addition and subtraction. Not because it's appropriate to first graders, but as indicators of those children who are working above grade level. And they do the same thing at all levels of the test.

So what happens around the country is the test results come back. Nearly every district in the nation goes into great stress, if not panic. And the first thing that most often happens is principals' meetings are held. And principals hear the test results are back, the superintendent's not really very happy, the public's not going to be happy. We've got to do something to get test scores up. Well, of course our public's not going to be happy. I hope you don't do this where you come from, but in Washington where I come from, we actually send individual student scores home.

Well, I don't know a parent out there who's going to be happy to see their child at the 50th percentile. Which is precisely where the test is normed for a typical child to be. In fact, I don't even know a parent out there who's going to be happy to see their child at the 70th percentile. Every place else in our school culture, 70% is a C-. Not good enough for my child, thank you very much. Well, a child who's functioning at the 70th percentile on a nationally norm reference test is a child who's functioning significantly beyond what's typical.

But we send the information out without our public having any way to understand the norming. Often we don't understand it as educators. So nobody's ever happy. There is not a district out there that would be content to show up at the 50th percentile. And so we've got enormous pressures to get test scores up. And one of the things that I am seeing happening increasingly around the country and it alarms me a lot. This actually happens in Whatcom County where I come from in Washington. A Whatcom County school district actually went public with this in the newspaper a couple of years ago. I was surprised to see it. They test 4th graders in October now so the tests won't be on the backs of the 4th grade teachers all year. Which sounds like a nice idea except for the fact that we now have basically 3rd grade children taking a test designed for 4th graders and that is problematic. But this district actually published in the newspaper that they spent thousands of dollars to buy a new program because it guaranteed results on the CTBS test. And they published in the local paper that they had spent the entire last month of the 3rd grade and the entire first month of the 4th grade shutting everything else down and teaching only that program that was designed to get test results up.

And their results went up to the 56 percentile and they got fine reviews in the paper. And I didn't hear anybody standing up and saying wait a minute. Wait a minute. Might there be some educational fraud here? Do you understand that because of buy-outs in this country, the very same companies that own the big textbooks are now the very same companies that own the big tests? And they are now the very same companies that are making millions and millions of dollars on their little programs that they have designed that guarantee schools results on their tests? And I don't hear anybody saying is this a healthy way to measure the future of our nation.

Now I don't know that anything as extreme as that is going on in your communities. But one of the things that I would bet money is happening, if I were a betting person, is the second thing that commonly happens when test scores get back. Districts all over the country do what we call an item-by-item analysis of the test. We take the test apart so we can see where our children are falling down so that we can do a better job of teaching what they didn't understand. Which sounds reasonable, doesn't it? We find out what they don't know and we focus our education there so that they learn it. Doesn't that sound like a reasonable thing to do?

Well, it has a very serious flaw. And the flaw is this. As soon as we do our item analysis, one of the first things we notice is our 1st grade children aren't doing very well with two and three digit addition and subtraction. And so the next thing that happens all over the country is that teachers' meetings are held and teachers are told test results are back, the superintendent's not really very happy, the public's not going to be happy. We have got to get these test scores up. And, by the way, pay attention 1st grade teachers because one of the things we noticed when we looked at the tests is your children are not doing very well with two and three digit addition and subtraction.