Barbara Reys
104 Stewart Hall
Columbia, Missouri 65211
University of Missouri-Columbia
Phone: 573-882-8744
Fax: 573-882-4481
cibr@showme.missouri.edu
December 18, 1998
Dear Professor Tsang,
A letter dated 12/21/98 that you wrote to the Piano ISD Board of Trustees was forwarded to me via e-mail. The letter refers to a paper I co-authored reporting research documenting the impact of two different standards-based mathematics curricula on student achievement.
The research reported is a carefully designed study that collected information from students after one year of use (grade 6) of “standards-based” mathematics curricula and compared that information to students who had used a more traditional, teacher-constructed curricula. The evidence indicates that students who use standards-based curricula (we studied two groups of students - one group using Connected Mathematics Project and another group using Math Thematics) perform as well as students who use more conventional curricula on traditional measures of mathematics achievement - Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), ninth edition. However students using the standards-based curricula performed significantly better than students using traditional curricula on a standardized problem solving measure (SAT Open-Ended Mathematics Problem Solving Test). As a research physicist I’m sure you understand the value of emphasis and expectations that students understand apply mathematics in problem solving settings. We know that U.S. students lag seriously behind students in many other countries, including Hong Kong and Singapore (countries you note in your letter), and that what they lack is not the ability to apply computational procedures or formulas but rather the ability to reason and solve problems (see the Third International Mathematics and Science Study for evidence). This is precisely the focus of the standards-based curricula.
As a parent of both a sixth and ninth grader, I expect the public school system my children attend to select the highest quality mathematics curriculum - one that challenges, intellectually engages, and focuses on understanding and applying mathematics. I believe that middle school students should be learning from a mathematics curriculum that places heavy emphasis on algebraic reasoning, statistics, geometry and number. Unfortunately, too many middle school students experience a mathematics curriculum that is focused too narrowly on computational and procedural skills. This narrowly focused curriculum has been standard fare in the U.S. far too long and it is not serving our students well. I want something better for my own children. I have spent many hours over the past three years studying the standards-based middle school mathematics curricula (as a parent, a teacher, a teacher educator, and a researcher). I am convinced beyond a doubt that these materials incorporate important mathematics that students in the middle grades should learn. I agree that the new curricula are challenging to teach. Rather than condemning the curricula, we need to find ways to better prepare and support teachers to teach challenging mathematics to our students. Nothing impacts the quality of our children’s’ mathematics education more than the teacher. I have great respect for teachers and recognize that they are performing the most difficult job I know. I also respect the decisions they make about curricula. I urge you to listen carefully to teachers and to respect their input and leadership in selecting and implementing good mathematics curricula.
I take exception of your dismissal of the study that I co-directed. You state in the letter to the Board of Trustees that “one should be especially wary of studies that are tainted with money from the publishers ... three of the four authors of that article are associated with the Show-Me Center which is in partnership with the CMP textbook publishers. Such studies should be dismissed as research similar to those designed by cigarette company ...“ As an academician you know that there is an established process of peer review in funding research studies and in reporting them. The study cited in the paper was funded by the National Science Foundation, not a commercial publisher. In fact, the Show-Me Center receives no funds from publishers. The study cited was reviewed by a panel of the American Educational Research Association and accepted for presentation at the annual AERA meeting in 1998. It is currently under review by a respected professional research journal.
I don’t know if you have read the paper you cite. If not, I encourage you to do so. As a fellow researcher, I would hope to be treated with the same professional regard you would offer a researcher in your own field. That is, that you would read the research report, engage in dialogue with the authors if you have questions about the research design, analysis or reporting of results, and portray accurately and without bias the information in the report.
As a scholar at Michigan State University, you are certainly aware of the importance of truth and accuracy in presenting information. Your analogy between our work and research related to the tobacco industry is both unwarranted, inaccurate, and unprofessional. While you are certainly entitled to express your opinion of CMP or any other curriculum, please do not misrepresent the integrity of the study. I hope in the future you will clearly distinguish between fact and opinion--and confirm the facts before you state them as such.
Sincerely,
Barbara Reys
Professor of Mathematics Education and
Director of the Show-Me Center
Copied to Elizabeth Phillips, MSU