In the mathematics department at Vanguard High School, we have taken on a mission to raise students’ interest, skill, understanding, and performance in mathematics Over the past several years, we have wrestled with the implications of the achievement gap, a pressing fact for us, as students enter our school well below grade level. Our own belief in education as an
Can We Talk about Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation by Beverly Daniel Tatum (Beacon Press, 168 pages, $22.95) Beverly Daniel Tatum argues that we must talk about race in order to combat insidious school resegregation and make good on the promise of our nation’s diversity. Policies reinforcing residential segregation patterns and federal judicial decisions that
Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools by Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner (Harvard Education Press, 250 pages, $24.95) Collateral Damage will recommit you to the Common Principles like a drowning person recommits to respiration. Nichols and Berliner provide a satisfyingly reasoned critique of high-stakes standardized tests, a tight, research-based, evidence-rich argument that creates urgency for the
Mike Schmoker, author of Results Now, articulates that “generous amounts of reading, writing, and argument are all essential to the development of truly literate and educated students.” Moving this perspective of literacy to the world of mathematics, we may define a numerically literate person as someone who is able to read, write, and argue with numbers, or more important, mathematical
Schools Amy Biehl High School 123 4th Street SW Albuqueque, New Mexico 87102 telephone: 505.299.9409 www.abhs.k12.nm.us Boston Arts Academy 174 Ipswich Street Boston, MA 02215 telephone: 617.635.6470 www.boston-arts-academy.org Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center 2750 Notaiah Road P.O. Box 1770 Estes Park, CO 80517-1770 telephone: 970.586.0600 www.eaglerockschool.org El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice 211 S. 4th Street Brooklyn,
One of the most wonderful aspects of editing Horace is having the opportunity to collaborate with CES educators willing to write about their teaching, their students’ learning, and their professional collaborations and growth. This issue offers the work of a group of math teachers passionate about their challenges as well as their achievements. They are inspiringly focused on equitable attainment
With a B.S. in math but no prior math education training, my first job as a math teacher was at an alternative charter school with a holistic mission. I was charged with teaching math to five groups of 17 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, embracing problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Few of these students had been taught math in this
Founded in 2006 by Jonathan Osler, Math and Community Organizing teacher at El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, a public CES high school in Brooklyn, New York, Radical Math is an organization for educators working to integrate issues of political, economic, and social justice into math education. The Radical Math website, www.radicalmath.org, is an evolving exploration of teaching and
“Mister, when am I ever going to use this?” When I started out as a new math teacher, these were the words I hated to hear because often, I wasn’t so sure myself. In my own life as a math student, the sheer un-usability of the material was a big draw. As a teen, I could not figure out my
Amy Biehl High School (ABHS) is a charter high school located in downtown Albuquerque that serves students from Albuquerque and the surrounding communities. There is no “typical” ABHS student; our student body is as rich and diverse as the city itself. Despite our school population’s differences in skills, special needs, socioeconomic class, race, culture, and English proficiency, we have one
One of the most challenging Common Principles for mathematics educators in Essential schools to implement is “less is more.” We are acutely aware of the role of mathematics performance as a gatekeeper; college entrance and placement exams rely heavily on math scores, and the current emphasis on high-stakes testing makes passing math exams a high school graduation requirement in many
The Math Forum Like CES, the Math Forum is collaborative, built by and for math teachers. The Math Forum is a long-standing, immense library of tools, curricula, teaching techniques, assistance, analysis, and opportunities for interaction to improve math teaching and learning. Run by Drexel University’s School of Education, the Math Forum serves teachers and learners with some for-fee services and