| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"Dom" |
| Date: |
21 Jun 2007 08:59:27 AM |
| Object: |
Ten Myths About Math Education |
The June 21, 2007 post at:
http://vormath.info/WordPress1/
Contains a link to "Ten Myths About Math Education And Why You
Shouldn't Believe Them," posted at:
http://www.nychold.com/myths-050504.html
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| User: "Bob LeChevalier" |
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| Title: Re: Ten Myths About Math Education |
21 Jun 2007 11:54:12 AM |
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Dom <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The June 21, 2007 post at:
http://vormath.info/WordPress1/
Contains a link to "Ten Myths About Math Education And Why You
Shouldn't Believe Them," posted at:
http://www.nychold.com/myths-050504.html
Of course, several of these "myths" are strawmen, and several of the
refutations do not actually refute them.
I like the last one best.
"Research shows NCTM programs are effective"
refuted by
"There is no conclusive evidence of the efficacy of any math
instructional program."
There is rarely "conclusive" evidence of any social science
phenomenon, since there are always more variables to control than can
actually BE controlled. In the meantime, this "refutation" is equally
applicable against ANY alternative that is proposed, and thus refutes
everything, or nothing.
Then the "references" for this item include something about the
Maryland state test math scoring that is totally irrelevant to the
question of whether some program is effective.
Summary: the indicated web page is merely propaganda and distortions,
another attempt to politicize math teaching.
lojbab
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| User: "Jeffrey Turner" |
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| Title: Re: Ten Myths About Math Education |
22 Jun 2007 06:41:34 AM |
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Bob LeChevalier wrote:
Dom <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The June 21, 2007 post at:
http://vormath.info/WordPress1/
Contains a link to "Ten Myths About Math Education And Why You
Shouldn't Believe Them," posted at:
http://www.nychold.com/myths-050504.html
Of course, several of these "myths" are strawmen, and several of the
refutations do not actually refute them.
I like the last one best.
"Research shows NCTM programs are effective"
refuted by
"There is no conclusive evidence of the efficacy of any math
instructional program."
Obviously no one has ever learned math because nobody has found an
effective way to teach math.
There is rarely "conclusive" evidence of any social science
phenomenon, since there are always more variables to control than can
actually BE controlled. In the meantime, this "refutation" is equally
applicable against ANY alternative that is proposed, and thus refutes
everything, or nothing.
We need to find (create?) students who are more amenable to such
research.
Then the "references" for this item include something about the
Maryland state test math scoring that is totally irrelevant to the
question of whether some program is effective.
Summary: the indicated web page is merely propaganda and distortions,
another attempt to politicize math teaching.
I haven't been following closely, but that seems to be Dom's stock in
trade.
--Jeff
--
The most extravagant idea that can arise
in a politician's head is to believe that
it is enough for a people to invade a
foreign county to make it adopt their laws
and their constitution. No one loves armed
missionaries... --Robespierre
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| User: "Dom" |
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| Title: Re: Ten Myths About Math Education |
22 Jun 2007 07:08:32 AM |
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On Jun 22, 7:41 am, Jeffrey Turner <jtur...@localnet.com> wrote:
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
Dom <D...@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The June 21, 2007 post at:
http://vormath.info/WordPress1/
Contains a link to "Ten Myths About Math Education And Why You
Shouldn't Believe Them," posted at:
http://www.nychold.com/myths-050504.html
[snip]
Summary: the indicated web page is merely propaganda and distortions,
another attempt to politicize math teaching.
I haven't been following closely, but that seems to be Dom's stock in
trade.
For an excellent analysis of the "attempt to politicize math
teaching," I would recommend the article by Michael J. Bosse ["The
NCTM standards in light of the new math movement: a warning!", Journal
of Mathematical Behavior, Vol. 14 (1995) 171-201], which described how
the 1989 standards were produced by less than a dozen "educators."
In page 196, Bosse wrote:
<<As previously mentioned, the NCTM hired a public relations firm to
promote the Standards and to get it into the eye of politicians and
policy makers. Some believed that the marketing strategy employed by
the NCTM is one of the most significant successes of the Standards.
"We know that is is important to consider how to get the message
through. We realized that what we did must influence policy makers,
and not teachers alone. We deliberately went out to influence policy
makers. (NCTM4)
At the national level there's plenty of Standards-waiving going on to
promote standards in other curricula. Therefore, the standards as a
deliberate political act is successful. (NCTM2)"
Undeniably, this public relations strategy employed by the NCTM has
been enormously successful in its endeavors. With the promotion of the
Standards by a public relations firm and some influential congressmen
on the federal level, the Standards quickly reached the attention of
the nation. So impressed were some educationally minded politicians
with the NCTM Standards that the lack of standards in other curricular
areas was questioned. This became the impetus for other fields to
generate their own set of standards.>>
The public relations firm retained by the NCTM is Burson Marsteller,
230 Park Ave South, New York City. Evidently, the NCTM paid this firm
about $250,000.
DR
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| User: "Bob LeChevalier" |
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| Title: Re: Ten Myths About Math Education |
22 Jun 2007 12:44:46 PM |
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Dom <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
Summary: the indicated web page is merely propaganda and distortions,
another attempt to politicize math teaching.
I haven't been following closely, but that seems to be Dom's stock in
trade.
For an excellent analysis of the "attempt to politicize math
teaching," I would recommend the article by Michael J. Bosse ["The
NCTM standards in light of the new math movement: a warning!", Journal
of Mathematical Behavior, Vol. 14 (1995) 171-201], which described how
the 1989 standards were produced by less than a dozen "educators."
Any committee that was larger than a dozen would probably never have
completed any standard at all. It takes something of the scope of the
King James Bible to justify a larger committee.
In page 196, Bosse wrote:
<<As previously mentioned, the NCTM hired a public relations firm to
promote the Standards and to get it into the eye of politicians and
policy makers. Some believed that the marketing strategy employed by
the NCTM is one of the most significant successes of the Standards.
Duh. How would any proposed standard get adopted if it weren't
"marketed" to the policy makers that decide such things. Using a PR
firm is hardly "politicizing".
Drumming up controversy on Usenet, where no one in a decision making
capacity is likely to get involved, is to some degree "politicizing".
It seems to be an attempt to activate some sort of political base in
favor of or opposed to certain reforms.
The real politicization is in your constantly posting commentary by
lay-people, news stories that involve reporters who are hardly expert
interviewing pro-/anti- reform activists. The credentials of all of
these people, including yourself (with your claims of how math was
taught in your school which runs counter to the experience of all the
other posters I have ever seen) are suspect.
At least I cannot fault Herman on his credentials as a mathematician
(though his expertise on K-12 education has not been evidenced - he
considers anyone who knows something about K-12 education to be an
"educationist".)
Educational standards have never been written by or adopted by the
general public. The general public, even those who are more
interested in the educational process than most (myself included)
really have no idea of all the considerations that have to go into
developing and choosing a standard.
In the case of math standards, where the public can't even agree as to
the purpose/goal of math education, lay arguments about the standards
are really a waste of time.
"We know that is is important to consider how to get the message
through. We realized that what we did must influence policy makers,
and not teachers alone. We deliberately went out to influence policy
makers. (NCTM4)
That is appropriate. In an era of state standards, it is the policy
makers that decide the content of course, not the teachers.
At the national level there's plenty of Standards-waiving going on to
promote standards in other curricula. Therefore, the standards as a
deliberate political act is successful. (NCTM2)"
OK. Let's deal with the fact that there are multiple definitions of
"political". The adjectival form of "policy" is "political" so any
form of input into policy-making is a "political act".
Trying to get lay voters to take sides in a policy-dispute that voters
are not directly involved in deciding (as in a referendum) and that
most voters are clueless about is turning "policy making" into
"politics making". The most plausible purpose is to activate these
non-expert people into using their power as voters to affect the
decisions of the people who make the decisions. That is what I mean
by politicization.
Informing voters in a neutral manner as to the nature of the types of
disputes that are taking place over math education is "political" of a
sort, but is not politicization.
The public relations firm retained by the NCTM is Burson Marsteller,
230 Park Ave South, New York City. Evidently, the NCTM paid this firm
about $250,000.
Dirt cheap by PR standards for any sort of national marketing. That
would buy you about 3 seconds of Super Bowl advertisement time (not
counting the production costs for the ad). I suspect that the
Hartford Public Schools alone spends a lot more than that per year
(which would pay the personnel costs for 2-3 professional workers and
a secretary at best).
If one were to price the efforts that went into the "Mathematically
Correct" website at professional rates, I suspect that it would have
cost several times as much. Indeed someone paying you to do all the
posting you've done over the years promoting your criticism of math
education would have probably spent more than that.
Of course it was cheaper than Super Bowl ads because they were
marketing to the small number of experts who decide curriculum policy
in districts and states, and not to the general public. Decisions
that are supposed to be professional (decided by trained people), and
not political (decided by dominance in mass democratic action).
lojbab
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| User: "Herman Rubin" |
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| Title: Re: Ten Myths About Math Education |
21 Jun 2007 09:29:23 PM |
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In article <1182434367.516778.158100@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
Dom <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The June 21, 2007 post at:
Could you send me your email address so I can communicate
privately with you?
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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