Submitted by Terri, Feb 9, 2007 15:46

I find it astonishing that there is such surprise generated by the findings of Professor Wilson's study. Given such apparent surprise, it becomes painfully evident that there is little understanding of the faults and deficiencies inherent within the University of Chicago's "Everyday Math" program. It is certainly well known that children who are products of this system fare miserably when asked to perform higher level computations. The foundations of these types of calculations are the very ones which are omitted or glossed over as the "short cut" is taught without provision of a basic substructure.

The sad part of this whole process is that it takes years before educrates recognize the error, resulting in the loss of an entire generation of students. It is reminiscent of the "whole language" fiasco in reading instruction. Similarly, without the basic skills to decipher and decode, how can one be expected to deal with a new word? Just as "whole language" instruction produced an entire generation of functional illiterates, I fear that we are in the same predicament with our mathematics instruction. Was it really necessary to repeat history's error; didn't our educators learn anything from it?

Honestly, the burning question really is "What is that band playing while those deck chairs are being rearranged?" Acid rock??? I doubt seriously that it's Mozart!

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