Board to vote on March 24

The Issaquah School District Board of Education will vote whether to accept or reject the recommendation to adopt Discovering Math in their meeting of March 24, 2010. The formal motion is here.

The board meeting will start at 7:00 PM at District Offices. Public comments will be taken before the vote.

The data against adoption of Discovering Math is overwhelming.

1. There is clear numerical student achievement data in favor of Holt Mathematics, and there is no data showing the effectiveness of Discovering Math.
2. The process used by the Issaquah School District to arrive at the recommendation for Discovering Math was deeply flawed.
3. Adoption of Discovering Math seriously impairs the ability of parents to assist their children in the process of learning math.
4. Expert analysis supported by the Washington State Board of Education of both textbooks has found that the Holt series is superior and that Discovering is unsound.
5. Every high quality piece of educational research in the area of inquiry based versus mastery based instruction finds no support for inquiry based instruction such as Discovering, and very clear support for mastery based instruction such as Holt.
6. The justification for Discovering Math in Dr. Rasmussen’s letter of February 24 contains a number of factual errors and fails to make a rational case for adoption of Discovering Math.

Parents and students are encouraged to attend the meeting and share their views before the vote.