By AMY RILEY
One Citizen's Perspective

The Fayette County school system is about to embark upon a textbook adoption process for mathematics, with an expected presentation to the Board of Education of an approved program sometime in the spring of 2001.

This adoption cycle coincides with the state cycle of textbook adoptions, and each school district statewide can expect a rollout of an approved list of textbooks from the state Department of Education sometime in November.

While a district may certainly adopt and purchase a program not on the state list, this is not often done due to large-volume purchasing incentives that are negotiated at the state level with textbook publishers. The textbook adoption committee for mathematics will begin meeting in August of this year and meet throughout the 2000/2001 school year until final selections are presented to the board for a vote.

The textbook adoption committee will be comprised of 20 teachers, one county office representative, two administrators, one school board member, one community business representative, and eight parents. The process will be divided into two subcommittees, one for elementary math and one for middle and high school math.

A textbook adoption class will be conducted for teachers Aug. 1 and 2 to acquaint anyone new to the process with the methods used to evaluate various programs and how they fit the math curriculum objectives for Fayette County. Parents serving on the committee will also be afforded a similar opportunity.

For the past year, a committee of educators has also participated in a seminar entitled “Effective Mathematics Classrooms: Explorations and Conversations,” led by county Math Curriculum Coordinator, Kay Seabolt. This group of 27 people, eight of whom will also participate on the textbook committee, spent more than 100 hours looking at the Fayette County math curriculum, the most recent research on how students learn math, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards.

On April 12, the NCTM will unveil their much touted standards revision. I was unable to view a draft copy, but have ordered one which will be available as soon as it is formally introduced at the annual NCTM meeting this week.

Nationally, there has been much speculation as to whether or not the revised standards will represent a long awaited and hoped for “middle ground” position on the simultaneous need for a more solid foundation in basic skills along with a more advanced emphasis on concepts, problem solving and technology. Many parents and activists nationally believed that the 1989 set of NCTM standards overly favored conceptual learning over proficiency in arithmetic. Time will tell.

Locally, parents of elementary students have a unique and very important opportunity during the next few weeks to express their views on what our next math program should look like. Surveys will begin to be sent home as soon as this week.

Some elementary parents have already received the survey which asks them to identify “three things [they] would like to see and three things [they] would not like to see in the new math program.” Other questions relate to parents' views on homework, asking them to convey their beliefs on “how much” and “what type” of homework they would like to see, and how willing they are to assist with their child's homework.

Parents will be asked to rank in importance various components of math education such as basic skills, math games, hands-on activities, problem solving, real-life application, and use of technology.

Please take a few minutes to thoughtfully answer these surveys and return them to your child's school. These surveys will be used by both parents and educators at each school site to determine parent views and wishes for the next math program.

This is your opportunity to let your voice be heard before a decision is made. This is the curriculum equivalent of perestroika.

I look forward to serving on this committee, and to an open and positive textbook adoption process. Hopefully, when all is said and done, we will have selected a product that will be just what Fayette County needs to continue on in our quest for academic excellence.

Your comments are welcome. Please email to ARileyFreePress@aol.com.

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