Tigard-Tualatin's new math curriculum draws criticism from parents

by Wendy Owen, The Oregonian

Thursday January 15, 2009, 1:35 AM

The school district is using CPM, where students work together to solve problems

Benjamin Brink/The OregonianQuinn Johnston, an eighth-grader at Fowler Middle School, explains her solution to an algebra problem on the board as her math teacher Emily Roach points out one of the good points of her answer.

"Seven-and-a-half times 4 is 23, dude," one says. "No, wait. ..."

"It's 30," another replies.

Nearby, three girls work in a group. They're not as boisterous, discussing their problem rather than debating their reasoning.

"I got 317," a girl says, writing her answer on a piece of paper.

"How did you get that?" another asks, craning her head to see.

This is CPM, the new math curriculum that has dozens of parents up in arms in the Tigard-Tualatin School District, which adopted it this school year in sixth through 10th grade.

The parents, who have formed a group called Parents for Math Choice, want the district to bring back a traditional math option for their children.

Administrators and teachers are asking for patience. CPM, which stands for College Preparatory Mathematics, requires an entirely new way of teaching math, and they believe it will make a difference for all students, not just those who struggle with numbers.

Students no longer sit in rows and silently copy down problems. They no longer just memorize rules and formulas before practicing 30 to 50 more problems at home.

Students now work in groups, talking through the problems. The teacher moves from group to group, quizzing students on how they got their answers. Sometimes students use colorful multisized plastic pieces known as tiles to physically represent an equation before working it out on paper. Each piece represents a value, such as 2x or y. The students have fewer homework problems because they must write a short explanation about how they came to the answer for each problem.

The theory behind CPM, which has been around for 20 years, is that students not only memorize rules and formulas but they also understand the concepts behind the problems and know when to apply them. The tiles help students who are visual or kinesthetic learners.

Tigard-Tualatin is the first district in Washington County to adopt CPM. So far, it is also the only one. The Sherwood School District is considering CPM and another curriculum for its middle school students next fall. CPM is also on the Beaverton School District's list.

Seven other districts in the state, including Portland Public Schools and Salem-Keizer, already teach CPM.

Unlike the Beaverton district, which has held a series of public meetings to discuss math programs it is contemplating, Tigard-Tualatin followed its traditional adoption method and did not include community sessions.

New teaching, too
About three months into the school year, some parents began hearing complaints from their children about the strange approach to math. Leafing through the books, parents saw a lot of things they didn't recognize from their days in school.

CPM is as different for the teachers as it is for the students and parents.

"I'm an old dog learning new tricks," said Tigard High teacher Deb Tate, who has taught math for two decades. "It is ginormously challenging to take my habits of 21 years and say I'm going to do this differently."

But Tate said she likes CPM.

"I like the fact that the lessons take incremental steps forward, exploring something new and returning to hit (previous material) again a few times," she said. "In traditional, you build on that lesson and build again and build again whether they understand it or not."

Like all math teachers in the district, Tate is still working out the kinks in the curriculum and the classroom.

It takes a lot more energy to keep five to six groups of students on task than a classroom working independently. Her second period algebra I class has some "productivity and paying-attention issues," she said. Instead of groups, she broke them into pairs last week and had them face the front of the classroom.

"The bottom line is you do what works," she said.

Freshman Ryan Smidt is one of the better students in the class. He took a traditional pre-algebra course last year, but he prefers the CPM approach.

"You understand what you need to do instead of memorizing it," he said.

Tate incorporates plenty of old-fashioned direct instruction in her classroom in which she works through problems on a whiteboard, but that's also part of CPM. It's considered a balanced approach.

Used in many states
CPM was started in the 1980s in California by a group of 30 middle school and high school teachers who, funded by a federal grant, created a math curriculum based on best classroom practices. CPM Educational Program is now a self-publishing nonprofit, said Brian Hoey, CPM director.

The program is on the state department of education adoption lists in California, Texas and other states but not in Oregon, which does not require school districts to select curriculum materials from its list.

Hoey said the company did not apply to be on the Oregon list. The adoption process is expensive for publishing companies.

Fowler Middle School math teacher Emily Roach looked through the CPM book last year and wasn't sold on it. "It took some convincing," she said.

But after half a year of teaching it, "I love CPM," she said. "I see more kids engaged during math class than I've ever seen before."

"They're energetic when they're in here, and they're talking about math concepts," she said. "Kids are coming out of the woodwork with their brilliance."

Eighth-grader Anna Vogt said she likes the "real-life scenarios" used in the lessons. "It makes more sense to do something we would actually need in life."

Last week, the students simulated a tag-and-recapture process biologists use to estimate fish populations. Students collected a sample of fish (beans) from a lake (a bag) and tagged them before releasing them back into a lake. They recaptured another sample, counted how many tagged fish there were in relation to the total fish in the sample, then used a proportion equation to estimate the total number of fish in the lake, Roach said.

Parents of advanced students are particularly concerned that CPM is not rigorous enough and doesn't prepare students for higher forms of math they will later encounter.

Roach said she's discovered some of those students had simply memorized complicated problems for years without understanding how to apply them.

"Now that they talk about it, I see that they didn't get it before," she said.

Parents divided on CPM
While there are plenty of parents who want another option to CPM, there are just as many who are willing to give the program a try.

Mary Calder said her son, a sixth-grader in a seventh-grade algebra I class at Hazelbrook Middle School, enjoys CPM.

"I really like the group concept," she said. "In life, they are going to be working with other people, including people with lesser abilities."

Calder attended college on a math scholarship and is a math tutor at Bridgeport Elementary. She said her son has an A in the class.

"Does that mean it's too easy? No. He comes home every day and talks about learning something new," she said.

Terri Burnette is a little more hesitant about CPM. She sees her son, who typically struggles with math, doing well. But her other son, who excels at math, "doesn't seem to be extremely challenged."

"He says he's bored, but I take that with a grain of salt," she said. "It doesn't bother me at this point, but it will as he goes further along."

The district is holding a meeting tonight at Twality Middle School at 6:30 p.m. with parents who want a traditional math option for their children. The district hired a facilitator to help identify issues and discuss various processes to resolve them. It is likely the first of several meetings, said Susan Stark Haydon, district spokeswoman.

The district, which used to offer both traditional and nontraditional math options at several schools, has not ruled out a similar format, but administrators have said they prefer a single curriculum used across the district.

-- Wendy Owen; wendyowen@news.oregonian.com

Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian Hayden Wells works with his partners on a problem in his CPM math class at Fowler Middle School. Group work is one of the hallmarks of the new math curriculum in the Tigard-Tualatin School District.

Tigard-Tualatin School District uses CPM algebra I and geometry in sixth through 10th grade with plans to incorporate algebra II this fall. Meanwhile, the district has narrowed its math curriculum options for kindergarten through fifth grade to two books, which are available at all elementary schools and the district office.
Information is also available online at
http://tinyurl.com/mathbooks.
Parents for Math Choice: mathchoice.org
College Preparatory Math: cpm.org

Schools with CPM

School districts in 40 states use the College Preparatory Mathematics curriculum. The largest of those states are Washington, California, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

In Oregon and southwest Washington, these communities have districts with at least one school using CPM:

Battle Ground

Brush Prairie

Portland

Salem-Keizer

Tigard-Tualatin

Molalla

Roseburg

Oakland

Pleasant Hill

Phoenix

Source: CPM Educational Program

What do you think?

What are your thoughts on the new approaches to teaching math? Do you think they will help students overcome hurdles in learning, or do you prefer to see schools stick with traditional math? E-mail us at west@news.oregonian.com; write to: The Oregonian, West Metro, 1675 S.W. Marlow Ave., Suite 325, Portland, OR 97225; or fax your response to 503-294-5902.