Posted on 07/25/2008 10:31:21 AM PDT by reaganaut1
My wife and I have 3 children (ages 1, 3, and 5), and we recently purchased a home in Winchester, Massachusetts, because its schools have a good reputation and its students do well on the MCAS . I looked at the "Academics" section of the school district web site and found "Math literature lists" (what happened to textbooks?) for various grades. The 4th grade list at
http://mail.winchester.k12.ma.us/~mkerble/mathlists4.doc
lists dozens of books, including
Count your Way Through Africa
Count Your Way Through Arab World
and 7 move "Count your Way" books
Amazon says the "Count your Way Through Africa" book "uses the Swahili words for the numbers from one to ten to introduce the land, history, and culture of Africa."
A school teacher who reviewed the book says
"Learn How to Count in Kiswahili! [...]
A very nice informative book that taught me a lot about the African continent and how to count in Kiswahili too! I wll share this with my class during Black History Month."
Fine, teach about Africa in social studies class, but this has nothing to with math! Even if the books were a serious effort teach kids to count, that ought to be mastered in 1st grade or kindergarten, not 4th grade. They need to work on abstract concepts such as fractions and decimals.
"Homeschool!", I hear you Freepers shout. We probably will not, since my wife is a doctor, but it's clear that if we send him to the public school, we had better take the math education into our own hands. We have been using the Singapore Math series, and our precocious 5yo is already in book 2A adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers with carry over.
Winchester is an affluent, mostly white (with some Asians) suburb of Boston, where most students do go on to college. I suppose most kids learn math anyway, maybe directly from their parents or through tutoring programs like Kumon. But what are we paying teachers to do? It reminds me of the recent article about "renegade parents" who teach their kids basic skills such as long division at home, because they are not covered in school.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/07/15/renegade_parents_teach_old_math_on_the_sly/ .
I grew up in Needham, back when some sanity still prevailed. It was getting nutty even back in the ‘80s in MA. I left in ‘91 and would never go back; certainly not with kids.
Two words: Catholic School.
My parents taught me to read and taught basic math at an early age (before kindergarten). It eventually meant that I was bored in most public school math and English classes, but in retrospect I’m happier that I was bored and can do it now than I would be if I struggled through school and could barely cope.
There is a incident reported this morning on Metro DC radio.
The guy took his pregnant wife thru a drive-thru and got food for $4.25. He gave the girl $5.25 hoping she would give him a dollar back. The girl stated that he had given her too much money. He told her yes, he wanted a $1 dollar back. She said couldn’t do that and went and got her manager. The manager told him no and gave him his original quater plus 75 cents back in change.
If you can, find a good private school that does teach the curriculum/values that you want.
In San Jose, California, we had 1 good public school, and it was closed by our district.
Math instruction has always been very good in our district. However, science and history were totally lacking.
My son is starting high school in a few weeks. He’s been in public, but we’re going private for high school. He’s into drama, and the public school drama department puts on very liberal, inappropriate schows (”One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”). Also, the English department has too many books on their recommended/required reading list that I feel are inappropriate (lots of cussing, sex, gang themes).
If you go public, you will have to keep on top of the curriculum all the way through.
If home schooling is out of the question, and the local parochial schools are not to your liking, there is always the straight private school route. Many of the prep schools that started in Junior High are now extending down into the elementary school realm. You live in Massachusetts, there is a cornucopia of private schools for every taste in that part of the country. Since your wife is a doctor, I will assume that the higher tuition is not a deal-killer.
Become a teacher and do it the right way, then.
My children are very gifted in math anyway (dad is an engineer) but in order to prevent any future problems we decided to enroll them in Kumon and haven't regretted it for one second. I tried all I could do to educate the other parents about the extreme deficiencies in this math system but nobody seemed to care. Now their children entering the 5th grade with my son don't even know their multiplication tables and my 10 year old is starting Algebra in Kumon.
I've compiled a list of great websites of groups in various states that are trying to fight the constructivist math advocates if you are interested I will post them.
In Government schools, ethnic diversity education is more important than trival stuff like mathematics. Didn’t you know that? Better get with the program! Some liberal might call Child Protective Services on you for attempting to deviate from the state mandated curriculum.
Good luck finding a good private school for your child!
My daughter just finished 3rd grade in the Framingham (MA) public school system, and I have to say that I was very impressed with the math curriculum there.
I think it was actually as thorough and as good as the one I had in 3rd grade in Scarsdale, NY in the 50s, which at the time was one of the very best public school systems in the country (probably still is.)
CC&E, former homeschooling mom
The truth: The schools suck. All of them. In the nice towns. I have first hand experience in 3 MA towns -- all rated highly for education, all with schools that were bad, bad, bad.
I pay $9000 a year for property taxes so that the *cough* excellent *cough* schools in my town can maintain their *cough* high standards *cough*.
I spend a bit less than $9000 a year so that my 2 kids can attend a quality private school. The reality is that my costs are doubled because of the incompetence of public education.
You should take this to heart, and really think if you want to shoulder the costs of living in Winchester. I suspect that the primary reason you chose that town was the schools. If so, you made a mistake, and you should re-think this choice.
No one ever gave me that kind of advice. I wish they had.
I do that sometimes, just for amusement.
I make a very good income based on math. The job market is so tight for qualified actuaries that their are only two requirments on a candidate 1) has passed some actuarial exams 2) breathes.
ping
So, you won't except when you will.
Why not find a private school? Religious schools tend to be very good, although I don’t know how you and your wife feel about that. I’m teaching summer school this summer and my two best students graduated from private high schools—one a Catholic and the other a Mennonite school. They both have intelligence, motivation and good work habits. They stand out in a class full of good students.
When it comes to math, there are three types of people, those who can count, and those who cant.
My wife has a female acquaintance with a masters degree in some unusable field.
They met when the woman took a part time job where my wife worked as a manager.
This woman could not even make change.
She used the cash register to calculate the correct change but even screwed that up because she would get confused and enter the wrong ammount tendered.
She is now a grade school teacher in the public school system.
This is a true story.
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