Noticed those boards too..

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Noticed those boards too..
By Julie

I saw some of the comments on Trailblazers also and am quite concerned. We are adopting a new curriculum this year and Trailblazers is one of our final five to be looking at. The others include Investigations, Everyday
Math, and the traditional Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin. I can only testify to Investigations as we don't have our grade level sample of Everyday and Trailblazers only sent one unit in their sample. I do have a question for you Elaine, did your school phase in Trailblazers or did you "jump in"?
We currently have a traditional text, that I'll admit I haven't used for the past few years.

We also have a staff that is leary about going outside their comfort zone of the traditional teaching of math and realize that brain research is showing that memorizing facts and operations is not helping our students. They feel it is a fad. I am REALLY concerned because our district is financially strapped and to me spending the money on a traditional text would be a waste of money because what we have is NOT working.
Also, Elaine, how does the spiraling work? Do you see any problems when new students come into the system in the middle of the year?
Any help, resources, etc. would be greatly appreciated!