New Math Program

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Home : 2002 : May : 18

New Math Program
By Karen

Ok...I have to ask...is the new math program a "hand-ons,investigative program"? I'm asking because we just started that one this year (and have no choice but to use it) and the teachers in my building are finding that #1.
Our students don't have the basic math skills to back up this program, ie. many can't multiply, do division, ect. #2. We spend so long on each unit 'investigating' that not much time is spend on actually practicing the skills they need and we don't cover much material. We spend the entire 1st term on factors and multiples - in 6th grade!
Needless to say, it's not helping test scores.

Administration realized that now we need to supplement the program, but give us no materials to do that. Our kids have no real help in their education at home - that's just the population that we have - and this program is very parent-unfriendly to boot. There's no way that they could follow it. I am scraping the final unit and doing my own thing (and buying my own materials) but how else are they going to learn? I don't see how they can "discover for themselves" that the area of a rectange = length x width, when they can't do basic multiplication!! Why do school programs have to lean so drastically one way or the other!?