Local educators evaluating new textbooks

COLUSA, Calif., Jan. 22, 2008 -- Local educators are evaluating, for the first time since 2001, a new list of K-8 math textbooks adopted by the state to determine which titles they’ll use next year and how, if at all, their curriculums will change.

Local school district officials, school administrators and teachers have begun the process of self-examination and assessing 41 new K-8 math titles -- including state-approved versions of books developed by Singapore’s Ministry of Education and one developed by the UCLA math department -- which the California State Board of Education included in

its 2007 Mathematics Primary Adoption on Nov. 8.

Parents, educators said, are encouraged to offer feedback during the process, particularly during the public comment period.

The recently adopted textbooks meet state math standards and can be purchased with state funds.

For instance, come next fall, some K-5 students in the Golden State will be using state-approved versions of the math textbooks that helped their counterparts in Singapore crunch numbers better than any children in the world, according to Jeffery Thomas, president of the textbooks’ North American distributor, SingaporeMath.com Inc.

As part of the statewide adoption, elementary school teachers in California will be allowed to use state funds to order adaptations of math textbooks that were developed by Singapore’s Ministry of Education and helped students there earn first-place rankings in three widely cited studies of student math performance conducted in 1995, 1999 and 2003, Thomas said. The global study -- Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) -- is conducted every four years.

The state Board of Education included the adaptations, or “Standards Edition” titles, published by Singapore-based Marshall Cavendish International in this adoption after receiving a list of recommended textbooks from the state’s Curriculum Commission.

The state-approved adaptations of the Singaporean texts represent a “marked departure” from most K-5 math textbooks used in the U.S., according to Thomas, a former community college professor. The state’s list of adopted math titles is available online at

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/im/mathprogramnov2007.asp.

The “Standards Edition” textbooks generally replace Singaporean dollars and cents with U.S. currency, Singaporean proper names and various British spellings, Thomas said. Teachers in Singapore deliver classroom instruction in English.

The adopted Singapore math titles are relatively thin books full of colorful illustrations of children, shapes and animals designed to support multi-step word problems that require students to work with numbers in various forms such as decimals, percentages and fractions.

“The presentation is astonishingly clear and child-friendly, yet is mathematically sophisticated,” said Thomas Parker, a professor of mathematics at Michigan State University. “Students learn through carefully-designed problem sets. By grade six, the Singapore texts are one to two years ahead of U.S. texts, and the students are extremely well-prepared to start algebra.”

Jim Milgram, a professor emeritus of mathematics at Stanford University, added that, “Singapore Math is one of the best programs out there --especially in the lower grades.”

Thomas Marshall Cavendish is a member of Times Publishing Limited.