Thanks Malkin,

This article explains much of what my colleagues and I have seen over the past decade.  Despite some union apparatchiks’ dogma, most teachers really understand what is going on.  Interesting to note that even the vaunted Finland is finding problems and is trying to fix them.

What’s that you say Wayne? Finland having troubles. He who shall not be named is dazzling the troops over at Paul Bennett’s blog today just when the discussion I was following began to get good with lots of new participants.

Speaking from a parent perspective I have to say that even we understand what’s going on. We’ve been hearing about it and experiencing it first hand ourselves for years.

The problems seem to have a much longer shelf life than parents (and teachers) do trying to change the beast.

Speaking of math ... Wayne, I would be interested in finding out what’s the average level of academic grade 9 math in your experience.

I’ve recently been told by acquintances that their daughter has spent a good deal of time (weeks?) in academic grade 9 math learning about the order of operations. Does that sound reasonable to you?
They also told me that based on what their daugther is saying about half of them are rather spooked by linear equations.
Does that sound reasonable to you?

For example roughly how many of your academic grade 9 students would be able to correctly do the following?
1) b - 3 = 10
2) 22x - 5 = 39
3) 0.5x - 20 = 0.2( 15x / 10 )
4) A Samsung flat screen TV used to cost x dollars. Then its prices was reduced by 20%.
Since the model was no longer being produced it was further reduced by another 5%.
As a result the current price is 175$.
What was its original price?

fromEurope,

For most of your examples, my students would be fairly conversant.  But you have to be careful, there is a wide range of abilities coming into Grade 9, depending mainly upon the teachers the students had in Grades 7 and 8.  I’m not blaming them, but many teachers in the elementary panel are not necessarily math teachers by training.  Therefore, some of them lack the ability to get the ideas across clearly and in a manner the students can grasp.

Most of my students showed me that they knew the oder of operations fairly well, so we did not spend much time on it - about one week.  The current Nelson Grade 9 Academic math text spends the better part of four chapters on linear equations - so that has taken considerably more time.  However, they are much more at ease rearranging equations than a month ago - so it actually has had its upside.  My students wouldn’t have problems with your examples 1) and 2).  3) would only give them problems stated in that form - I have steered them away from decimals and kept them using fractions (but I assume you just typed it that way) Now, question 4) would give them some problems - percentages throw them off.

The main problems I see are in part what I have stated before: basic operations with positive and negative numbers and fractions (which is why I forced them to use fractions rather than decimals).  Some other problems I have noted this semester, I’ve never run across before; mainly their utter inability to retain anything.  Therefore, they constantly apply the latest thing they learned to every situation they encounter.  For example, when we worked with polynomials, I went over in great detail about collecting up apples and oranges; and going over the order: x cubed before x squared before x, numbers at the end and so on.  Then they started writing their terms as x3 instead of 3x.  They had applied the order of the equation to the order of the term.  I’ve never seen that before.  Another thing I have never seen before is the noise - and I don’t mean just talking.  Whenever I tell them to get to work, some start talking for sure; but even those not talking feel the need to produce some sound - tapping pencils or feet, tuneless whistling or humming, and random ‘sound effects’ for lack of a better term.  I don’t know if it is the result of the Ipod generation or what, but none of the students can work without creating noise.  Finally, one last major difference I have noted is their inability to do tests on their own - they feel the need to constantly ‘borrow’ pencils, rulers, calculators and erasers from their neighbours during a test.  It has taken me from September until now to break them of that habit.

Thank you very much.
Actually, I was wondering what the students can do right at the beginning of grade 9.
I wrote 3) with decimals mixed with fractions on purpose because I’ve heard from several people that their kids are having trouble going back and forth from decimals to fractions.

Why would grade 9 have linear equations again? They were introduced in grade 7 and I understand they are studied again in grade 8.
Does the high-school curriculum continue to be a spiral curriculum?

It isn’t just lack of ability by teachers to do math up to the grade eight level which results in students pushed into grade nine but lacking many skills—it’s also because there is no accountability whatsoever.  In other words, if teachers don’t cover the curricula, it doesn’t matter.  To even imagine that every single teacher at every grade level is teaching the math in a deligent manner is a huge stretch; add to this the lousy math curricula and voila—students with very poor skills.
btw, my children had to learn to convert fractions to decimals to percentages by grade five.  We parents had to monitor closely what was going on in the classroom to ensure that all of this was being taught; otherwise it simply would have been shelved for movies, skating parties, etc.

This is what happened to a friend. She had moved in order for her son to go to school to one of the best elementary schools in Toronto. Her son had been attending that school from grade 1 onwards.

At the beginning of grade 5 her son comes back from school crying saying that there are exercises he doesn’t know how to do.
They were long division exercises that her son did not learn in grade 4; at least based on the materials and homework her son brough home in grade 4.
Upon speaking to the teacher, the grade 5 teacher told her that he’s supposed to know that, is part of the curriculum and she doesn’t have time to spend on that because if she does that then she’s not teaching what she needs to teach for grade 5.

Ok, my friend taught her son long division at home; she was grateful that at least she found out exactly what the issue was and it did not fester for too long.
Problem solved.

Now who was right who was wrong, ... who knows?
That’s why I have been trying to find out what the curriculum requires at each grade level.
Should the grade 4 teacher have taught it?
Is it really not required by the grade 4 curriculum so the grade 5 teacher was wrong to ask for it?

If long division is not required to have been mastered prior to grade 5, why not? What is the content of the math curriculum and if it’s so open to interpretations what value does it have?
How can a parent tell what’s what? Depending on the teacher I hear different things - sometimes they get homework, sometimes they don’t. Some parents at least see worksheets at home, some don’t. Some parents see the textbooks home once a week some almost never.
So really, what’s a parent supposed to do?

What would have happened to a child who did not have a parent aware of the problem and able to teach him at home?

Europe the curricula guidelines are online.  They’re easy to read; however they don’t seem as demanding as when my children were in public school in the 90’s.  Because there is no accountability, parents have to monitor constantly—firstly to ensure that the math is being taught on a daily basis, and secondly that the grade curriculum is being covered thoroughly.
Shame on the teacher for not catching up that child.  When I attended school, I can remember teachers spending time with struggling students.  Why do we accept that they won’t lift a finger to help out nowadays?
What happens to children who have parents who are unaware and don’t ask questions?  Look at our lousy results on the grade 10 literacy tests if you want to see what happens to them—and those are only the grade 10 children who pass the darned—in my opinion—the grade four level literacy test.  What about those children who by highschool think that 1/4 is larger than 1/2?  This is what happens to children whose parents are unaware of how bad the Ontario system is.  Oh yah, I forgot to mention that when some parents do challenge the system, their children get labelled as learning disabled.

If long division is not required to have been mastered prior to grade 5,

Long division is not in the Ontario elementary mathematics curriculum.

Thank you, TDSBNW.
I am not facetious and when people take the time to point me to information I do look it up.

However I did try several times to read the online curriculum and each time I tried I got increasingly frustrated as I was reading it because I could not understand what it means in concrete terms.

Or maybe my own biases in thinking made me not to believe that if it is not there in black and white it is not implied.

Sorry Europe.  I just glanced over the curricula online, so I didn’t realize that it’s written in edubabble.  In the 90’s children didn’t have to learn to do square root either—they were just told to use a calculator.  I had to teach mine square root at home.  Gawd we’re very paying high taxes for nothing but garbage…