In the present economic climate, why are we still talking about math? In all honesty, I doubt that any candidate’s views on the elementary math curriculum will win or lose the race. Nevertheless, I believe that the School Board’s assessment of the K-5 math program speaks volumes about how they will handle any controversy in our children’s education. Since the six candidates express such a wide spectrum of responses to the questions posed by PQME as well as by the recent League of Women Voters public forum, it is worth “reinvestigating” the merits of Investigations.
There are three main reasons why we should reconsider the choice of the elementary math curriculum:Â its poor track record in other school districts and two inherent flaws in its design, namely, an underemphasis of fact fluency and an overemphasis of self-discovery.
As part of its marketing outreach, the publishers of Investigations provide a list of satisfied educational customers including school districts from around the country—what you might call “success stories.” The problem is that, in many cases, success has turned sour! Of the 62 districts that began using this text in 2007, 36 of them in places like Seattle, Washington, Naperville, Illinois, and Syracuse, New York, have either dropped or are in the process of dropping it by 2009. This means that over half of the school districts that at one point welcomed this new math curriculum with open arms have since abandoned it. If the choice of Investigations has raised so much controversy all across the country, it stands to reason that this is not a problem imagined by some 700 misguided petition signers in the State College school district. Where there’s smoke, there must be fire!
In his statement last May about the elementary math curriculum, David Hutchinson drew a sharp distinction between the disciplines of mathematics and of mathematics education: to solve a difficult math problem, he would ask a university math professor; to discover how to teach a math concept, he would ask a math education professor. The thing he neglects to mention is that these days education faculty and, ultimately, the textbooks they write, share a fascination for “constructivist” theories of learning.
One of the basic principles of “constructivism” is that every child learns in a different way. This seems like a sensible foundation for an educational theory. Problems arise, however, when this “customized” approach to teaching is taken too far.  Any education expert will admit that there are precious few studies that confirm the effectiveness of “constructivist” math curricula such as Investigations. More important, there are an increasing number of professionals who have raised questions about the “constructivist” approach in general (see Barry Garelick on “Discovery Learning” and “Investigations Analysis” by Bill Quirk).
In my mind, the most fundamental flaw in the Investigations text is the authors’ attitude toward computation. Virtually everyone agrees that mindless repetition of math facts is not the best approach to teaching and learning arithmetic. But to treat the four basic algorithms—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—as simply one of many approaches to computation which are all equally effective shows to what degree this curriculum overreacts to teaching methods from the past. Although the district “Action Plan” has introduced a number of steps to try and compensate for this problem, it is impossible to cancel out one of the authors’ driving motivations: to de-emphasize fact fluency.
Another major problem is the enormous emphasis the authors place on self-discovery. At every grade level students are encouraged to find their own way of solving a problem. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of teachers occasionally letting students experiment and discover things on their own. But too much experimentation leads to inconsistency, frustration, and lack of fluency. Surely one of our goals in 5th grade math should not be to have each student find his or her own “personal” way of doing long division!
The pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction. There needs to be some sort of check and balance against innovation for innovation’s sake in the math curriculum. It’s high time that our district tried a new approach to teaching math in the elementary schools. I urge you to vote for any candidate who will reconsider the district’s commitment to Investigations.
