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Oak Norton
CPA

SB 159, Math Education Initiative, is an important milestone in the efforts of a number of people to bring better math to Utah. Over the past few decades, Utah, and our country, has continued to fall behind other high achieving countries in our math education. There are a number of reasons for this, but primarily it is low standards, poor curriculum, and poor teacher preparation to teach math.

This bill starts a process which has led other schools and districts to see dramatic improvements in math education. In Los Angeles for example, in one year, Ramona Elementary increased their students grade level passing scores from 45% to 76% (a 69% increase).

At Benchmark charter school in Arizona, students there have become the top scoring math students in the state passing up Saxon math schools that have held the title for several years. Benchmark also has the notable distinction of 94% of the student body declaring math as their favorite subject! Not only to the kids do well in math, they love it! Is there another school in America let alone Utah where that has happened?

Singapore's math advantage is in the fact that they have only 15-20 standards to master each year, where Utah has 50-70 (thus the term "mile wide and inch deep"). This gives Singapore students about 9-10 days per subject to master it deeply, while American counterparts are changing subjects every 2-3 days. Singapore also has a curriculum structured such that you don't touch a subject and not master it. Their plan is to approach a subject completely and let the student master it and then move on to new subjects (while always using what they've learned). In American curriculum, we often see subjects being touched multiple times which leads to frustration and a lack of mastery from our students.

There are a number of misconceptions floating around concerning this bill. Most of those concerns can be easily resolved by reading the bill, but we have also set up a FAQ which further explains some of these issues. For example, concerns about cultural differences have been shown to be a non-issue when you look at how American schools have implemented the program retaining our lifestyle just fine, while asking students to think deeply about the subject matter.

The basic concept behind the bill is to allow schools to request grant money to adopt the world's most effective known curriculum (Singapore's Primary Math Series), and then educate teachers in the content and pedagogy that produce these amazing results.

Wide support has been shown for this bill from legislators, educators, state and district school board members, directors of curriculum in Utah districts, and many, many parents who have seen the need for such a program.

As one who has worked on this project for several years with a number of very talented and committed individuals, I am pleased at the growing support and potential this bill will provide to Utah's math future.

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