Today we received notice of the Seattle School District’s decision to appeal the Decision of Judge Spector which required the SPS board to reconsider its high school math text adoption vote.
I am deeply disappointed that SPS will funnel more resources into this appeal, which, I suspect, will be more costly than following the judge’s instruction to reconsider.
Our attorney tells me: “…. I’ll put in a notice of appearance, and then we wait for the District to complete the record by having the documents and transcripts transmitted to the Court of Appeals. They write the first brief, due 45 days after the record is complete.
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I briefly skimmed through some of the blogs re this hotly debated topic in the Washington community. This dedicated group of parents, community members and math experts are not only doing their homework, but they appear to be reaching out locally and to the world community for support. I found the following entry on one of their blogs interesting – betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
Within that particular entry is a link to an article – http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf – that talks about how the mind acquires knowledge and that what solid instruction does is to add to one’s long-term knowledge. The overemphasis on discovery-based learning as an instructional methodology does not align with how one’s mind learns and adds to long-term memory, especially for novice’s in an area of learning. Fascinating and very enlightening to me, at least.
It would seem to me instruction that does not build the long-term piece of the mind would pose major limitations for one’s future learning when a student is in a more advanced class of any subject area. If a student does not have a solid foundation in the basics of math, for example, and the associated math facts, by the time they finish elementary school, more advanced learning in math will be impeded. However, I think the same might apply to many subjects besides math and science, including languages, language arts, the arts, social sciences, to name a few.
In any community with a large population of low-income students, who often do not have access to outside family support, not having the appropriate mix between direct and constructive, could be very damaging to their learning and the overall achievement gap over time.