| About Everyday Mathematics | Other Districts Using EM | Relevant Documents |
Background – Common Core Begins
In the 2013-14 school year, the La Cañada Unified School District (LCUSD) in Southern California began implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across its three elementary, one middle, and one high school. During that year, the District began the daunting task of adopting curriculum and textbook materials. No elementary mathematics textbooks were yet certified by the state as Common Core aligned, so LCUSD implemented an ad hoc approach in elementary mathematics instruction. Teachers used a combination of materials, supplementing the way they had been teaching with the Ready Common Core textbook and workbook material.
The Textbook Search Begins
In 2014, the District began the formal elementary mathematics textbook adoption process to find a book aligned with the CCSS Mathematics standards. The California State Department of Education’s State Board of Education in January of 2014 finally published its initial list approved K-8 mathematics programs aligned to the CCSS mathematics standard. Six of these texts were supposedly piloted† in select classrooms across the District’s three elementary schools. A textbook selection committee consisting of teachers and administrators, but no parents, began to meet periodically. It is worth noting that Everyday Mathematics was the only one of the six curricula under consideration in LCUSD that was not on the BOE’s 2014 adoption list. At the end of the 2014-15 school year, the committee did not find a CCSS-aligned elementary mathematics textbook suitable for District adoption.
The following school year (2015-16), one additional textbook – Eureka Math – was added to the elementary mathematics textbook pilot program, but teachers did not like it and rejected it from further consideration. By this point, six textbooks were being “piloted” and under consideration:
- McGraw-Hill My Math (K-6)
- McGraw-Hill Everyday Mathematics: Common Core Edition (K-6)
- Pearson Scott Foresman enVision Math Common Core (K-5)
- Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt GO Math! (K-6)
- Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Math Expressions (K-6)
- Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Math In Focus: Singapore Math (K-6)
Parent Input
Unlike other school districts around the country where parents are included on the textbook selection or evaluation committee, no parents were included on the LCUSD elementary mathematics selection committee. The omission of parents from the textbook selection process is a violation of California educational code (§ 60002.) When asked why no parents were included on the committee, District Staff responded that the process used is standard practice for textbook selection committees both at LCUSD and at other neighboring Districts, and had been the process used in the district for years. Further, Staff wrongly asserted that textbook selection was a teacher decision, as stipulated in the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement. A subsequent review of the 2015-18 Collective Bargaining Agreement by members of La Cañada Math Parents discovered that this assertion was factually incorrect. The agreement stipulates that textbook selection is a District choice, not a teacher choice. The District Governing Board may delegate this decision-making authority to teachers, but they had not done so in the case of the selection process for a new K-6 elementary mathematics textbook.
In addition, the textbook selection committee did not meet in public in contravention of California Education Code, did not take minutes of meetings, did not issue summaries or transcripts of their meetings, and in fact never made a report or presentation of any kind to parents.
In April of 2016, the District asked parents to evaluate the six candidate textbooks being considered for adoption as the District’s elementary mathematics textbook. Parents were given three hours on Thursday May 3, 2016 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm to review the textbooks, teacher’s guide and/or manuals, and other supporting materials for seven grades K-6 for six different textbook products. Most parents were unaware that the District had been conducting the textbook evaluation process for two years and even fewer parents responded to the public notice about the three-hour textbook review period.
Unbeknownst to parents, the elementary mathematics textbook selection committee met BEFORE the May 3, 2016 parent review session and selected their top two textbooks for each grade. Twenty-six parents attended the textbook review session, and of those only seventeen completed the one-page evaluation form that provided to parents for feedback. In short, less than 1% of parents provided any sort of feedback to the elementary textbook selection committee. Parents had three hours to review the seven grades’ worth of material, even though realistically three of the products had already been eliminated from contention. In other words, parents who attended the textbook review session wasted valuable time reviewing textbook material that was not possible to be selected.
It is not known which textbooks the parents ranked highest among the six candidate textbooks as the committee never published its proceedings.
The Textbook Recommendation Committee Makes Its Choice(s)
On May 5, 2016, the elementary mathematics textbook selection committee met, listened to a summary of the parent feedback collected at the May 3, 2016 parent review session, and voted on a textbook for all grades K-6. The teachers in grades K, 1, 3, 4 and 5 selected Everyday Mathematics. The teachers in grades 2 and 6 selected Math In Focus: Singapore Mathematics. The head of the committee, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Anaïs Wenn, told the committee that they had to agree on a single textbook for at least grades K through 5. The committee apparently reconsidered and the 2nd grade teachers agreed to change their vote to Everyday Mathematics.
Concerned parents first learned of the committee’s recommendation on Thursday evening, May 5, 2016. Parents mobilized to find out more about the process, decision, and textbooks selected. It was discovered that the LCUSD Governing Board would be asked to vote on the committee’s recommendation at its next regularly-scheduled Board meeting on Tuesday, May 10, 2016.
First Board Vote
On May 10, 2016, the LCUSD Governing Board held its regularly scheduled meeting. On the agenda for First Reading items was the consideration of elementary textbook adoption. Assistant Superintendent Wenn gave an oral report of the elementary math textbook committee’s recommendation of Everyday Mathematics for grades K-5, and Math In Focus for grade 6 to the Board. Click here for a written transcript of the Assistant Superintendent’s oral presentation to the Board. The Board then asked questions of Mrs. Wenn. The agenda for the meeting indicated that the Board would be asked to approve the committee’s recommendation on a straight up or down vote and further approve funding of $500,000 for an initial purchase of textbook and support materials for teachers across all grades K-6.
Several concerned parents asked the Board to delay the vote since inadequate time and representation had been provided to parents to make an informed decision about the textbook committee’s recommendations. The Board agreed and delayed the vote at least one week. The Board further directed District Staff to organize a parent math night “to educate parents about the committee’s choices” and to invite the publishers to come give a presentation to parents and answer questions and concerns.
District Math Night
On Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 6:30PM, the district hosted representatives from McGraw-Hill Education, the publisher of Everyday Mathematics, to make a presentation to parents and answer questions. Dozens of concerned parents attended. After a glossy marketing presentation by McGraw-Hill, parents asked a series of difficult questions of first the publisher and then the District. It was apparent that the presentation and subsequent discussions did nothing to calm the concerns of parents; if anything the event only served to make parents more concerned that the selection of Everyday Mathematics was a bad decision reached through a flawed process. For example, Assistant Superintendent Wenn was asked if any effort was made to reach out to districts that had used Everyday Mathematics in the past and then chose to dump it (and there are many). The District confirmed that no such efforts had been made. Apparently the District did not think it was important to understand why the program had failed in the past before deciding to use it on our children.
Parent Information Session
Following the District-sponsored District Math Night, the La Cañada Math Parent group invited experts from around the country to come to the District to help inform the community – parents, teachers, staff, LCUSD Governing Board members and community members alike – about Everyday Mathematics. District staff were asked if outside experts would be allowed to come and speak before the Governing Board and/or District teachers and staff. The parents were told that the only experts that would be allowed to speak were the District’s own teachers. Denied the opportunity to present expert testimony, La Cañada Math Parents hosted a parent information session on their own at the Lutheran Church of the Foothills in La Canada on the evening of May 26, 2016. Professor James Milgram of Stanford University, one of the original four authors of the 1998 California Mathematics Standards, was the featured speaker.
LCUSD Board Workshop and Adoption Vote
On Thursday May 26, 2016 the La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board voted unanimously (4-0) to approve the Textbook Adoption Committee and District Staff’s recommendation to adopt Everyday Mathematics for grades K-5 and Math In Focus for grade 6 beginning in the 2016-17 school year over the objections of many concerned parents. Board members approving the motion included Dan Jeffries, Brent Kuszyk, Ellen Multari and Kaitzer Puglia. Board President David Sagal was absent. Prior to the vote, a lengthy debate about the decision, including a special board workshop had ensued with teachers and staff expressing their support of Everyday Mathematics, and parents mostly expressing their concerns or opposition to it. In all, twenty parents spoke during the public discussion period prior to the vote, with all but two asking the board to either delay the vote or reject the motion as proposed to adopt Everyday Mathematics. There was no debate during the three plus hours of presentations and discussion about the committee’s recommendation of Math In Focus for grade 6. The Board expressed vocal support for the creation of a textbook adoption oversight committee that included parents as well as teachers to closely monitor how the adoption of Everyday Mathematics proceeds in the coming years, although no formal motion was made to put this idea into action.
Click here to read an account of the meeting in the Los Angeles Times (06/02/2016.)
Deployment of Everyday Mathematics
During the summer of 2016, the district began planning the deployment of Everyday Mathematics for grades K–5 to be used at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year. The description of that deployment follows on this page:
† – The term piloting is used loosely here. The district did not follow the Guidelines for Piloting Textbooks and Instructional Materials published by the California State Board of Education as Official Policy 01-05 in January 2015. The Guidelines are maintained on the CA DOE’s website here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/imagen.asp. The district uses an abbreviated process for piloting where teachers are asked to teach a topic or section from candidate textbook materials and report their results to the textbook adoption committee.
La Cañada Math 