**National Mathematics Advisory Panel**

**Public Commentary Presentation**

# St. Louis, MO 

# September 6, 2007

> **"What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must
> the community want for all of its children". So stated John Dewey in
> The School and Society.**
>
> I live in the affluent public school district of Ridgewood New Jersey.
> But my district has a dirty little secret. Ridgewood Public School
> district is segregated -- on one side of town, elementary school-aged
> children are taught math following a logical sequencing of topics,
> honoring the scholarly body of mathematics. 
>
> **In another part of town the math is not taught but instead it is
> left for the children to discover and to construct. The math where for
> grades beyond Kindergarten the use of scissors, glue, paperclips, and
> any other object now defined as a manipulative, are deemed acceptable
> and encouraged. Sadly, this is the side of town where my children
> attend school.**
>
> One of my children was struggling to learn within that environment. As
> any parent would do, I raised my concerns to the school system but
> those concerns were met with  "Our math is for ALL the children". 
> Outside of the school, I found a teacher and using a traditional math
> program, presented to my child math concepts sequentially, logically.
> My child practiced, practiced, practiced or as a fellow math mom
> called it, "drill & skill". Lo' and behold, my child learned math,
> understood math.
>
> My other elementary school age child has a knack for math, readily
> grasps the concepts. Yet in the same school, I found he was bored.
> Once again, I raised my concerns, but because I live on that side of
> Ridgewood, the reform math side, the TERC math side, my concerns were
> once again met with, "Our math is for ALL the children". 
>
> **The same traditional teacher, using the same traditional program
> that helped my struggling child to no longer struggle, embraced my
> mathematically inclined child and advanced his skills, fed his thirst
> to learn and understand more, celebrated his intellect rather than
> leaving it behind.**
>
> From speaking to teachers, seemingly handcuffed by curriculum policy
> and fuzzy standards, to communicating with superintendents blinded by
> their ideology so as to NOT hear valid parental concerns, to emailing
> and confronting elected Board of Education officials with a
> preponderance of evidence that their reform math policy is not
> educating ALL of the children, to being interviewed by reporters who
> still erroneously cover the math wars as a battle of rote memorization
> verses critical thinking, to writing editorials to inform parents
> unaware because grades seem fine but hide what little is really being
> taught and learned, to writing government officials as mathematically
> capable citizens are needed to lead our nation in the 21^st^ century,
> to creating a website and authoring a petition, and to having flown to
> St Louis to speak before this panel, all to advocate for a math
> education for my children, for their voices to be heard, for the same
> education that is available on another side of my town.
>
> **Across this nation, parents just like me, will ultimately triumph in
> the math wars because it is OUR children, not the children of the
> state.**
>
>  
>
> And for OUR children, their education is more important and held more
> dearly than any social, political, economic or ideological driven
> agenda. In Ridgewood New Jersey reform math programs are on the
> agenda.
>
>  
>
> **Parents in Ridgewood have been given no information to
> misinformation to biased information, and it has all been delivered as
> if it was truly "scientifically research based" information. The
> findings of your panel can hold great significance but only if what
> you present is crystal clear information.**
>
>  
>
> My husband and I are the best and wisest parents for our children.
> Give us a choice in math education and we would choose a math
> education that is rigorous, focuses on content, is not driven by
> constructivist pedagogy, emphasizes the learning of mathematical
> facts, principles, and algorithms, uses the proper language and
> symbolic notation of math, and defines mathematical reasoning as the
> interconnections within mathematics. It is the kind of math that is
> being taught in other parts of this nation, the world, and in other
> parts of my town of Ridgewood New Jersey. It is the math I believe
> that will provide a solid foundation for my children so if they
> desire, if they dream, to become a scientist, an architect, or like
> their dad, a Wall Street finance executive, or like their mom, an
> engineer, they can.
>
>  
>
> **Thomas Jefferson would have wept at the thought of a mathematically
> illiterate United States of America.**
>
> But I stand before you today, in recognition that I will provide to
> the future of this great nation three mathematically capable citizens
> that I have educated. And their success will be in spite of reform
> math.
>
> Thank you. Elizabeth Gnall