Weekly Math Updates

September 29, 2005

"By the end of fifth grade, TERC students have fallen roughly two years behind where they should be." -Dr. Wilfred Schmid, Harvard Math Professor

Hi all,

    First, welcome new petition signers.  We've had a good influx of new signers since the radio ads stopped and I want to thank those of you that have been passing on the news to friends and neighbors.  I've got some good news, a request, an update, and some information for those of you in Alpine School District specifically around American Fork.

Announcement

    For those of you that have heard the radio ads I produced, the ads refer people to a website other than mine called TeachUtahKids.com (TUK.com).  There were several reasons for this but it was mostly an effort to consolidate forces a little bit.  When I started my petition drive a few months ago, I had never heard of TUK.com and didn't know if anyone else out there had a desire to see a major improvement to the math program in this district.  When I learned about TUK.com I contacted them and have had a great relationship working with Doug Cannon and his wife who founded the movement a couple years ago.  We have since tried to collaborate on a few items and now we're making that more complete by merging our databases of petition signers and email lists.  I have tried to carefully edit all the names on the petition from TUK.com as well as email addresses to ensure there is no duplication in the lists.  If you get 2 of these emails, I apologize.  Please contact me or follow the instructions at the bottom to remove 1 or more email addresses from the list.

    For those of you coming on board from TUK, welcome.  I email this petition list about once a week, maybe slightly more if there's something important happening.  In any case, anyone can unsubscribe by following the directions at the bottom of this email.  Now the wonderful news is, after merging our databases, we now have 3.64% of the school district children represented on our petition.  That's 667 families that have signed a petition to get rid of Investigations math and 1,895 children of 52,000 in the district represented.  If everyone reading this would sign up just 1 more person, we'd be over 7% of the district!!!  But imagine if everyone signed up 3 people!!!!!

The Request

    Now just think for a minute about raising your voice and passing out a flyer to just a couple more people and encouraging them to sign the petition.  What we need is for you to save hundreds or thousands of dollars in tutoring costs and/or homeschooling material over the next several years by helping this fight change the math program with a small donation of $15 for us to sign up 3 people for you.  That's right, our radio ads averaged just under $5 per petition signed.  If you donate $15 we'll sign up 3 people by running more ads.  If you can do more then great.  We'll sign up that many more people.  If that's too expensive for you at the moment, then just open your mouth and pass out a few flyers to neighbors.  The flyer is an easy introduction to the topic and does most of the work for you.  Just hand out a few and say, "hey, I thought you might be interested in this.  There's a lot of concern over the math program and I've signed this petition to raise the standards for our kids."  (I've attached the flyer for your convenience in case you're one of the new merged signers and don't have one)

    Now there's no more excuses.  I've given you the flyer and then then option of paying a few bucks for more radio ads, or I've given you the dialog to start the conversation!!!  Now let's march on to 10% of the district on our petition!!!!!!

Make your donation here by paypal, credit card, or mailing a check:

http://www.teachutahkids.com/radioad.asp

An Update

I've updated my website with a new article on critical thinking as well as posting the sites given to me by my elementary school principal a couple years ago touting the benefits of Investigations math.  If anyone wants to read the sites that say this program is great, I'll post them in plain sight for your review.  Just make sure you read the rest of my site for the negatives.  Here's links:

Critical Thinking Skills (or how Investigations Math fails to live up to its stated purpose)

http://www.oaknorton.com/imathresults22.cfm

Pro-Investigations Math websites

http://www.oaknorton.com/imathresults23.cfm

Sincerely,

Oak Norton

www.oaknorton.com

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