Eggen needs to end the failed ‘discovery math’ experiment

Math education in Alberta has reached a new low. Our rate of math illiteracy has doubled for Grade 4 students since 2011, with our most vulnerable students hit hardest.

The latest results are part of a disturbing trend that has seen Alberta schools embrace an experimental method of teaching math in the past two decades while our students have sunk low on international tests.

Alberta students used to test well ahead of their Ontario counterparts but behind Quebec students. Alberta now ranks significantly behind both Ontario and Quebec and is not remotely close to top nations, such as Singapore, Japan, Northern Ireland and Russia.

In 1995, nine per cent of Grade 4 students in Alberta ranked at the top level for math, meaning they could apply math to relatively complex problems and explain their reasoning. But just 2.4 per cent students hit that mark on the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Even more ominously, our number has exploded in the category of students who lack even a basic knowledge of math. It went from six per cent of Grade 4 students in 2011 to 13.2 per cent in 2015.

More than 4,662 students at 154 Alberta schools took the 2015 TIMSS, which was administered in 52 countries and provinces worldwide at the Grade 4 level.

The students hit hardest are the kids who don’t have parents who can teach them math at home, or lack parents willing and able to pay for expensive tutoring, as increasing numbers of Alberta families are now doing.

“It’s like a bright red flag that our students in both math and literacy in certain socioeconomic groups are disadvantaged,” says Education Minister David Eggen.

Many math professors and teachers blame the failing results on the pervasive influence of a new style of teaching math, known as “constructivism” or “discovery math.”

Across western Canada for the past 20 years, the memorization of times tables and the teaching and diligent practice of standard arithmetic has been downplayed. Indeed, the conventional style of teaching math has been derided by discovery math advocates as “rote learning” and “drill and kill.”

Instead, elementary school teachers have been required to guide children as they explore multiple strategies to attempt simple math problems.

“The first discovery-based curriculum was attempted with the Western Canadian and Northern Protocol 95-96 curriculum,” says University of Winnipeg math professor Anna Stokke.

“The later (2006) curriculum that our students use now was a doubling down.”

The results on international tests paint a clear picture of failure for the discovery math curriculum, Stokke says: “It’s hard to understand why it isn’t clear to (education) ministry officials.”

“The trend is quite disappointing,” says University of Alberta math professor Vladimir Troitsky. “It is likely due to a large extent to discovery math and changes in curriculum.”

Eggen agrees with the critique from math professors that Alberta’s poor test results are related to the shift to discovery math: “I think their analysis is quite sound historically.”

The key to improving scores is the coming rewrite of the K-12 math curriculum, Eggen says.

But can we trust Alberta Education to get it right?

Discovery math advocates are now entrenched in university education departments and in government curriculum writing groups.

When the link between discovery math and our failing math education first became clear a few years ago, they attacked the international tests as misleading and asserted their constructivist approach was backed by research.

But when math professors, such as the University of Manitoba’s Robert Craigen, dug in, they found the research supporting discovery math was iffy at best. Leading neuroscientists say the discovery movement is based on unscientific notions about how children learn.

If discovery math education profs and consultants dominate this latest curriculum rewrite like they did the 1996 and 2006 rewrites, things will only get worse.

Eggen refuses to release the names of the current curriculum writers. He says we can judge their work by the final result.

That’s not even close to good enough.

To end two decades of educational malpractice, Eggen would be wise to do two things.

First, bring back the Grade Three provincial exam in math so we can better identify students and schools most in need of rapid early intervention.

Second, Eggen has created his own working group of math professors and experts to advise him, but they’re not actually writing the curriculum. To ensure this curriculum is sound, Eggen should have this working group formally assess the new K-12 curriculum and, most crucially, make public their findings.

We need certainty that the failed discovery math experiment is over.