Everyday Math (Again)

[Anonymous]

Lots of schools do a mixture, but that's not always obvious to parents/critics for whom the most visible part of the program is the name on the textbook series. How the textbooks are used and what other materials are being used can be less obvious.

[Anonymous]

I was at our curriculum night last night and so had this thread in mind. Like most schools I think, our school uses predominantly EDM but also uses other approaches/materials. For example, the kids do timed tests on their multiplication and division and keep track of their scores until everyone knows them. I think we as parents are very influenced by our memories of what we learned when in evaluating these programs, without really understanding whether one approach is better or not. It is certainly true that my kids learned their multiplication tables by heart later than I did because that is not something that is particularly stressed early. However, the work that is done on fractions, prealgebra, etc. is presented in EDM much earlier than I had it. So I am not sure that using EDM means the kids know less math at any given age, but that they do know different areas of math than we might expect at those ages by looking back at our own school days.

I should add that my 5th grade daughter who is a good math student is working on algebra work and solving equations that in my day were considered 8th grade algebra (and only the best students were allowed to take algebra in 8th grade). She has been in EDM (with a little bit of other stuff mixed in) since she started school and it seems to be working fine and no supplementation at all.

[Anonymous]

Similar story here but with a sixth grader. Math teacher mentioned that she used lots of stuff other than the textbook (providing an example) and that she didn't use the textbook in the order the material is presented because she has an approach that she thinks works better.

When I teach, I don't use textbooks, but if I had to, I'd skip around and customize too. The nature of textbooks is to assert comprehensiveness and coherence but to have their own black holes, strong suits, and peculiarities. Every textbook choice is an imperfect one.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know why Green Acres switched from EDM, what they switched to, and if they are happy with it?

[Anonymous]

OP, I recently spoke to someone on the MCPS math curriculum committee, they are in the process of revamping the math curriculum. They say it is "broken", the main curriculum there is EDM.