Moreover, parents worry when their 5th graders can't multiply single-digit numbers without pocketfuls of beans and sticks. Teachers are concerned that the mastery of basic skills signifies something more than computational proficiency, that students who learn these facts to an automatic level also gain a deeper knowledge of mathematics, a sense of number unfathomable to those who don't know them. The third complaint has to do with the dramatic transformation of math textbooks. Progressive educators have never really liked textbooks, feeling that teachers rely on them too much and that texts narrow learning to a series of dull, repetitive tasks. But the textbook has its virtues.
Texts publicly declare the curriculum.
They link home and school, and by providing a calendar for learning, allow parent, teacher, and child to see what has been covered and what lies ahead. The textbook is the closest thing we have to an enforceable learning contract in the American school, and for the last century, no serious academic subject has been taught without one. Some of the new math programs either use kits rather than texts or provide texts that are flashy in appearance but short on substance. Sen. Byrd couldn't find an algebra expression until Page 107 in the book that appalled him. As suggested by this example, the math that is presented in texts may be inexplicably dressed in PC garb.