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Schools Approve New Math Books: Texts Will Cut Down on Memorization Teachers Say

Posted on: Friday, 17 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Anna L. Mallory, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Mar. 17--Kanawha County's school board took a vote Thursday that they hope will help students improve in math.

The board voted unanimously to approve the Everyday Math series in elementary grades one through five. The vote ended a two-year debate over which textbooks to adopt. The new books will be in place in the county through 2011.

The new texts will help teach students to look at math from a fuller perspective, not just focus on formulas. Teachers said it could also cut down on memorization and worksheets.

"We have to wake up, folks," Coleen Vannoy, a math trainer with the county, told the board of education before the final decision was reached.

"There's more than one way to do a math problem," she said. "[The program's] big thing is to get kids over their fear of math."

"We have to do something different and I think it can start here in Kanawha," she said.

Vannoy said she thinks students are so far behind in math because they have been taught one particular way to do problems over the years.

Superintendent Ron Duerring said the new texts should introduce a new process to students rather than "the teacher did it like this at the board and this is how I have to do it," he said.

Although the math series won a unanimous board vote after being selected by a 40-member committee, it wasn't the only approach desired in the county.

Some teachers still want to use an approach called Saxon, and they had been vocal with board members. That approach provides teachers with a lengthy script from which students are taught.

However, some of the content is taught earlier.

Board member Becky Jordon said her kindergarten-aged child learned concepts before her second grader using the Saxon method.

Both Jordon and board member Bill Raglin wavered over the vote before consenting to its adoption.

"These people that took "old" math were instrumental in going to the moon," Raglin said. He pointed to large gaps between scores in state and local math testing, and said the books chosen will have a profound impact on students.

He said he was hoping a pilot project including both Everyday Math and the Saxon approach would occur. However, Duerring said the decision for the new series will be across the board.

Adoption of the series was scheduled last year, but was put off in favor of forming a second, far-reaching committee. The committee that selected the series was open to all county teachers.

Health and science textbooks for all schools will be the next to be adopted. The board gave those books a first read Thursday.

To contact staff writer Anna L. Mallory, use e-mail or call 348-5163.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

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Source: The Charleston Gazette

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