More News

Kudos to Frederick County Board of Education member Angie Fish!

At the Nov. 11 school board meeting, the board was presented with an elementary math curriculum update. After the presentation, Mrs. Fish spoke up and expressed real concerns about a number of issues with the school system's math curriculum, TERC Investigations.

She also reminded them that Frederick County Public Schools originally told us that Investigations was just a resource or a tool in the tool box for the teachers to access. However, that was later "updated" to the more accurate statement of, "Investigations is indeed the primary resource being used in the classroom."

One has to wonder why FCPS felt the need to downplay this chosen primary curriculum to begin with. Perhaps because it is highly controversial, lacks solid content, and has been implemented but yet dropped by more than half of the school jurisdictions in the United States that are so boldly listed as "TERC success stories" by its publisher. Very telling indeed.

As a parent, Mrs. Fish is experiencing the same frustrations and disappointments that hundreds of other parents in this county are feeling. She too has to supplement at home because TERC is leaving so many gaping holes.

She is right. There is too much time spent on what FCPS wrongly claims is "conceptual knowledge," but really is distracting, sorely lacking material unrelated to the important math concepts kids need to learn. While "conceptual knowledge, 21st century thinking skills & critical thinkers" are all trendy terms that educators use, make no mistake. We are not fooled.

Most parents are not trying to produce baby Einsteins with their children. We'd just like them to be able to walk before they are expected to run. In other words, it would be nice to know that our elementary children can add, subtract, multiply and divide effectively and efficiently before they are required to "critically think" about it.

Thank you, Mrs. Fish, for sharing your valid concerns last week. Your efforts are loudly applauded. Let's continue to fight and hope for some real math change in this county.

Michele Perry, Frederick