Several parents who signed the petition wrote comments like this one:
My daughter (3rd grade) ALWAYS answers the math questions because she just knows the answer and then she explains based on what she thinks the teacher will want to read (and not always in an “Advanced” or “Proficient” way). If I ask her to explain it, she writes equations. This is very frustrating for her, and it is no way to foster the love of mathematics in a child that obviously “gets it”.
It is a huge failing of Investigations that it frustrates kids who love math and are good at math. When math placements are guided by a “curriculum-based assessment” that places the same importance on the ability to explain answers that it does on getting the right answers, then our kids are not being well served. It’s important to realize that outcomes like the one for the family of the commenter above are intended by the developers of Investigations. This is a curriculum whose purpose is to redefine what it means to be good at math, and really to redefine what math is. This point is made much more clearly and forcefully by the developers of “Investigations”, TERC, Inc., in this essay on their web site:
The rules for success and the very definition of what it means to do math have changed on them. Math is much harder now.
