Other Districts Using Everyday Mathematics

The adoption of Everyday Mathematics has been controversial in many Districts around the country. Listed below are some of the Districts and cities that have endured contentious battles over either adopting, replacing or keeping Everyday Mathematics in place. Read through the experiences of others to see if there is anything to be learned. To its credit, Everyday Mathematics has also been adopted in several districts without major opposition, at least one close by (i.e. San Marino Unified.) Also listed below are what elementary mathematics textbooks are in use by nearby and comparable districts.

What Other Districts Use Nearby:

  • Palos Verdes Unified School District (Math In Focus) – PVUSD is the only District that beat LCUSD in the Los Angeles County Math Field Day contest held at Glendale High School on April 30, 2016. PVUSD adopted Math In Focus: Singapore Math  in 2015 and is the same curriculum selected by LCUSD’s textbook committee’s 2nd and 6th grade teachers, and in Spring of 2017 by the 7th and 8th grade teachers for use in middle school beginning in the 2017-18 school year.
  • San Marino Unified School District (Everyday Mathematics) – SMUSD is slightly smaller than LCUSD in enrollment, but its High School ranks higher than LCUSD in the California state rankings. SMUSD elementary schools began using Everyday Mathematics during the 2014-15 school year. SMUSD’s experience with EM is mixed. SMUSD district officials stated to their LCUSD counterparts that the transition has gone smoothly and that they “love” EM. However, some SMUSD teachers strongly dislike EM and report that they have been warned by district officials not to say anything negative on the record about EM. La Canada Math Parents knows of at least one veteran SMUSD teachers who quit rather than be saddled with EM and all the problems he/she saw as a result of the decision.
  • Arcadia Unified School District (enVision Math)
  • South Pasadena Unified School District (Math Expressions)
  • Manhattan Beach Unified School District (Go Math) – Manhattan Beach used to use Saxon Math but adopted Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt’s Go Math! in December of 2015. However, note that Manhattan Beach voted to adopt Go Math! as a resource, “not as a sole mathematics curriculum.”
  • Glendale Unified School District (enVision Math) – Glendale just completed a multi-year effort to adopt a CCSSM-aligned mathematics textbook and currently uses a combination of different materials. They selected enVision Math from Pearson Education. GUSD used Everyday Mathematics for a period of about eight years beginning in about 2007, but quickly encountered problems. For example, read this letter from a parent in 2008 describing the problems. Teachers began to supplement Everyday Mathematics with other material, and by 2011 began to have great success with Swun Math, a curriculum developed by a math teacher in Long Beach, California. The GUSD math selection committee ditched EM from its candidate list in 2016, narrowing their finalists down to two textbooks — enVision and Math Expressions. When asked about the EM experience, GUSD officials claimed was great for the district. Off the record several teachers reported to La Canada Math parents that they hated EM, so much so that by year five one teacher estimated that at least half the teachers were not using it at all.

Districts That Abandoned Everyday Mathematics:

Many Districts have adopted Everyday Mathematics, only to encounter problems with it and abandon it later. Listed below are school districts that have dumped EM and the year they replaced EM. Click on the city to read about their experience:

  • Lu Verne, Iowa (2019) – The Lu Verne Community Board of Education, which serves the cities of Lu Verne, Corwith and Wesley in north central Iowa dumped EM in favor of Bridges in Mathematics after using EM for several years. Summarizing the decision, Lu Verne Superintendent and Principal Jon Hueser said:

    “We have been using Everyday Math for a few years now…”We found out that Everyday Math had holes in it to the core standards. As a staff, we felt like it was time to move and go toward a new math program.”

  • Wood County, West Virginia (2017) – The Wood County Board of Education approved adoption of the iReady Mathematics curriculum to replace EM at several district elementary schools (i.e. Fairplains and McKinley Elementary):

“(Directory of Curriculum Christie) Willis said the district’s Everyday Mathematics curriculum has left gaps in learning for students who struggle with mathematics. The district has used other supplemental programs to help fill in those gaps, she said.

Wood County Schools will begin a new mathematics curriculum adoption process this school year, but the books and curriculum will not be in schools until the 2018-19 year.”

  • Arlington Heights, Illinois (2017) – Arlington Heights District 25 had been using EM since 1992, but voted in April 2017 to dump EM in favor of Math In Focus:

“‘Everyday Mathematics, unfortunately, no longer meets our needs,’ (assistant Superintendent of student learning Eric) Olson said. ‘We are a high-performing district, and we need a curriculum that best meets our students’ needs.’… 

Olson said district officials and teachers also no longer liked idea of using the Everyday Mathematics ‘spiral’ curriculum.

With a spiral-style curriculum, a classroom teacher introduces a mathematical concept to students and even if some students in the classroom do not fully understand the concept, the teacher is supposed to move on since the curriculum is designed to circle back to those concepts in future lessons.

‘The issue we found with this type of (spiral) curriculum is that it was hard for teachers to move on from a concept if students were still not understanding that concept,’ Olson said.”

  • Lower Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania (2017) – Pottsgrove School District adopted EM in 2013 at a cost of $309,000 and parent complaints began almost immediately as student performance on math assessments began to decline soon after implementation. The Pottsgrove School Board began an EM “program quality review” in 2015 due to the problems. More than a year after the review began, the  district’s Curriculum, Technology and Student Affairs Committee unanimously voted on February 21, 2017 to dump EM in favor of Singapore Math.
  • Glendale, California (2017) – As mentioned above, Glendale Unified School District used EM for at least eight years and just completed their K-6 textbook adoption process. They decided in late 2016 not to renew with EM. In March 2017 they voted to adopt enVision from Pearson.
  • Harford County, Maryland (2016) – Voted to replace EM in grades K-6 and UCSMP Transition Mathematics in middle school with enVision Math from Pearson. EM had been used since 2006.
  • Radnor Township, Pennsylvania (2015) – Had been using EM since 2009, but abandoned it in favor of Math In Focus. When the parents fought the Radnor School Board to dump EM, they wrote:

“Parents are frustrated about K-5 math in Radnor as a whole, because the everyday reality of putting Everyday Math at its foundation is this: an egregious amount of tutoring, supplementation and remediation both during the elementary school years, and certainly after when students get to Algebra and higher math.

“Parents are spending a small fortune on Kumon, on Mathnasium, and on math tutors that bill at $75-80 an hour. Parents who pay very high school property taxes leave for private and parochial schools citing their K-5 math experience in RTSD as a key reason.

“Parents are being told to get their children online every night to practice math facts — without any consideration to 1) learning quality in the 12th hour of a child’s day, 2) family down time, 3) the management of this with households of three and four children, 4) what else children see and find online, and 5) what pediatricians direct to parents on limiting screen time.”

  • Manchester, New Hampshire (2014) – A 2017 news report reveals the Manchester district abandoned EM in 2014 and have been using ad hoc materials cobbled together from different sources since then:

“Manchester school board member Lisa Freeman, who received the anonymous teacher letter, said Manchester schools abandoned the last district-wide math curriculum, Everyday Math, when the Manchester Academic Standards were adopted in August 2014.”

  • Stafford Township, New Jersey (2014) – Parents and teacher complaints about EM led to its being replaced by GoMath.
  • Seattle, Washington (2014) – A contentious parent revolt over EM that lasted several years led to Seattle School Board voting in June 2014 to discontinue EM in favor of Math In Focus.

“Parents and teachers had lobbied the district for years to use Math in Focus, described as ‘Singapore math.’ Singapore has been consistently ranked as the highest-achieving country in the world.

Gone is Everyday Mathematics, a curriculum that focused on math through stories.

Adopting Math in Focus was a surprise move, given that the district’s advisory committee had recommended adopting a different math curriculum, enVisionMATH.

Critics said Everyday Mathematics was especially difficult for struggling readers and English language learners. Parents and teachers said it was tough for kids to understand and skipped quickly between topics, without ensuring mastery. “

  • Haverford, North Dakota (2013) – Abandoned EM in 2013 for Math In Focus following a multi-year pilot of Math In Focus which resulted from many years of protests from both teaches and parents.
  • Maplewood, New Jersey (2013) – Dropped EM in 2013 in favor of Math In Focus.
  • Ithaca, New York (2012) – Home to Cornell University, Ithaca schools noticed test scores dropping and replaced EM with the old-school Singapore Math (Primary Edition), and even better version of Singapore Math than Math In Focus:

    “…During these meetings it became clear the math program ICSD was using, Everyday Math, was not meeting the needs of teachers and students.

    ‘Everyday Math is a program with a spiral or cyclical format,’ Talcott explained, ‘the idea was as kids spiral through the program—learning coins today, for example, and coming back to it in a couple of weeks—they’ll master certain concepts. We found that wasn’t the case.’

    The math committee was charged with finding a new math program, given that Common Core testing was on the horizon, they wanted one that would also address Common Core math standards. ‘We did some research, created a rubric, invited teachers to score six different programs based on the rubric. We went on site visits to check out the top two programs and landed on Singapore Math, partly due to its alignment with Common Core math standards,’ said Talcott, who was a first grade teacher at the time.

    Specifically, they chose the Primary Mathematics program, a version of Singapore Math, which Talcott described as ‘very well-sequenced; the concepts build on one another. The program is a three-step process focused on taking mathematical concepts from the concrete to the pictorial and then the abstract.'”

  • Wallingford-Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (2012) – Dropped EM in 2012 in favor of Math In Focus.
  • West Yellowstone, South Dakota (2012) – Abandoned EM in 2012 in favor of Connecting Math Concepts:

“The school board also discussed and approved paying for a new math curriculum for the elementary level, which the elementary math teachers recommended. Connecting Math Concepts curriculum will replace Everyday Math Concepts.

‘There’s unity in the decision,’ superintendent Calton said of the math teachers’ recommendation. The new curriculum was piloted in the first, fourth and fifth grades this past year, she said, and there are too many discrepancies and holes in the Everyday Math that we were teaching.”

  • Medford, New Jersey (2012) – Replaced EM with enVision Math.
  • Edgemont, New York (2012) – Ditched EM in favor of Math In Focus.
  • Scottsdale, Arizona (2010) – Abandoned EM in 2010 for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Math Connects for most schools, and Saxon Math for traditional schools that used “linear,sequential philosophy of math.”
  • Bridgewater, New Jersey (2009) – Replaced EM in 2009 with HSP Math. Bridgewater had been using EM for almost ten years. The newspaper report of the switch says:

“HSP will replace Every Day Math, a program the district has used for the past decade, and which has drawn the ire of many parents who believe it caused their children to fall behind in math classes.
…
Schilder said discussions about Every Day Math’s place in the district have been ongoing for at least three years. Even when the district supplemented that curriculum with more traditional algorithms and memorization, concerns about the program remained, he said.”

  • Menlo Park, California (2009) – St. Joseph’s School in Menlo Park adopted EM in 2002 but decided to drop it after 7 years. Problems reported with EM included:

“EM does not provide good mathematical foundations, this was not obvious in lower grades but became a problem by 5th or 6th grade. In Grades 1-3, teachers ended up having to use EDM very loosely because it required lots of supplementing for students to be able to master grade level math.

The spiral was quite problematic and, though teachers supplemented to try to make it work for them, there was no way to standardize the supplementation between classrooms so what was taught and how it was taught was very difficult for the administration to monitor for consistency.  Also, it spiraled too quickly.  The spiral was particularly problematic for struggling students.”

  • Columbia, Missouri (2008) – After a years-long battle between concerned parents, which formed a group called Columbia Parents for Real Math, the Columbia, Missouri Board of Education decided to dump a reform-math curriculum similar to EM called “TERC: Investigations in Numbers, Data and Space” in 2008. Read many of the posts and links on the Columbia Parents for Real Math website and you’ll find a similar process, set of concerns, and outcome as the districts who fought similar battles over EM.
  • Rocklin, California (2002) – Abandoned EM in 2002.
  • Reading, Massachusetts (2000) – EM was introduced in Reading, MA schools in 1997. As a result of declining test scores and computational skills observed by parents of children taking EM, the parents formed a group called Concerned Parents of Reading (CPR) in 1997. CPR’s analysis of student Stanford 9 test scores showed a meaningful decline, particularly in Computation, in a few short years. Read about their years’ long battle with their school board to try to achieve “balance in Math.” An excerpt:

“Concerned Parents of Reading had only asked that a balanced math program be used in the Reading Schools, one that stressed both concepts and computational skills and that grade by grade learning goals and objectives be achieved! Instead, our parent group was stonewalled. Data was denied which repeatedly forced us to obtain information under the State’s Freedom of Information Act, including access to an anonymous teacher survey done by the school administration.. The anonymous survey revealed that 86 % of our elementary school teachers felt the program had major problems. Some central themes expressed by the teachers were: the material is too scattered, there is too much skipping around, moving on without mastery, too much material, no clear identification of what’s essential and the list continues. Yet, the superintendent had released a report on Reading’s math program, prior to CPR obtaining the real surveys, which distorted the results of the teacher survey and reported they actually loved the program! The superintendent denied our parent group copies of the original teachers’ surveys until, with help from the State, our group finally obtained the information.”

  • Stoneham, Massachusetts (2002) – Adopted EM in 1990s. Replaced it in 2002 due to concerns over declines in computation skill of students:

“In Stoneham, Michael Kennedy, program supervisor  for math in grades 6-12, said they’re replacing the more exploratory University  of Chicago math program with ‘more of a meat and potatoes, more drill and practice’ texts.”

Source: “Old Arithmetic Returns to Classroom,” Boston Globe, April 7, 2002.

  • Kingsport, Tennessee (2001) – Encountered problems with students using EM in 2001:

“Myself and two colleagues are now elected school board members because our district had ‘Everyday Math‘ for 6 years; that’s also part of the reason we are getting ready to hire a new superintendent.  It took 4 years, but the community was finally outraged.  Parents got no straight answers. … Students who have an engineering bent and who already know the multiplication tables will do ok with EM; most others will fail miserably.”

Source: “Everyday Mathematics, Fad or the Future,” by David Coffey, Oak Ridger Online, April 06, 2001.

  • San Antonio, Texas (2004) – Teachers voted overwhelmingly in San Antonio to abandon EM in 2004 after several years use, even though test scores improved.  About the rise in test scores, Wayne Bishop wrote:

“San Antonio ISD dropped EM after several years and in spite of  rising test scores.  Why were the scores rising?  Because most schools and individual teachers were learning to leave EM on the shelf and do their own thing with whatever materials they could scrounge while EM took the credit.”

Source: Post by Professor Wane Bishop on NCTM’s MathForum.org, Nov 8, 2001.

  • Chicago Area Schools (2000-2002) – Given EM was created in their hometown, many Chicago area schools adopted EM in the 1990s. Several districts including Burr Ridge (2002), Cherokee School (2001), Chicago District 109 (2001), and St Charles (2000) voted to drop EM after having problems with it. Many other Chicago area Districts tried to abandon it, but were unsuccessful. For example, read the sad tale of parents from District 308:

“Our group of concerned parents came up with many reasons for not wanting Everyday Mathematics and for wanting a traditional program instated:

  1. We would like a math program that concentrates on mastery of basic math concepts; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
  2. The spiraling concept is not working. If our child did not pick up the math lesson on the day it was being taught or were even absent a day, waiting two months for it to spiral and attaching more to the concept only confuses the child more. We, as parents, are not able to teach the lesson because the workbook that might come home does not have the lesson present. Could I teach my daughter the Lattice Method?
  3. The average classroom child needs to learn one method when solving algorithms. We have learned that many schools are only using Everyday Mathematics as a supplement for their academically talented classes ( Lisle, Plainfield ). These children would enjoy learning these different algorithms and would not be confused by them.
  4. No transition between Everyday Math and Junior High curriculum. We are sending our children to Junior High unprepared. They are using their fingers when adding and subtracting. The Junior High teachers are reteaching the curriculum because of this lack of knowledge.
  5. Parents are tired of paying for tutoring. Huntington, Kumon, Sylvan — where does it end?”

Districts in California That Fought Everyday Mathematics:

There are two districts in California that fought heated battles over Everyday Mathematics, with parents ultimately losing out to Administrators who chose EM. However, there are valuable lessons to be learned from their experiences:

  • Palo Alto Unified School District (2009) – In 2009, the Palo Alto Unified School District considered and ultimately approved the adoption of Everyday Mathematics, over the objection of 700+ parents and the recommendation of their own textbook selection committee, which included parents as well as teachers and administrators. The battle, which culminated in a close 3-2 vote by the PAUSD School Board against the wishes of many of its parents and its own textbook selection committee is reported here:

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2009/04/29/palo-alto-schools-to-get-everyday-mathematics

PAUSD began another textbook selection process in 2015 and decided to abandon Everyday Mathematics. An internal survey of PAUSD teachers revealed that 40% of teachers had stopped using EM entirely within the classroom six years after its adoption, substituting other materials instead:

“After devoting an entire school year to testing out new math materials at Palo Alto’s elementary schools and selecting three curricula to recommend to the Board of Education, a school district committee swiftly voted on Monday to back a new curriculum that most committee members just saw for the first time this week and to abandon Everyday Math, the curriculum at the center of the district’s bitter ‘math wars’ in 2009.”

  • Conejo Valley Unified School District (2005 & 2008) – In 2005, the Conjeo Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) fought a bitter battle with parents over complaints and a movement led by parents to provide an alternative to Everyday Mathematics, which had been in use in the District for three years. The Board ruled against the parents and continued Everyday Mathematics. Enrollment in K-5 dropped by 500 students the next year in response. In 2006, an additional 400 K-5 students left the CVUSD schools. Subsequently CVUSD had to close two elementary schools. In 2008, CVUSD formed a math textbook adoption committee again. This time teacher dissatisfaction with Everyday Math was very high. 6th grade CVUSD teachers voted to drop Everyday Math, and 60% of 5th grade teachers voted to adopt Harcourt Math instead. Click here to read a detailed history of the CVUSD Everyday Math battle. The 2008 textbook review process revealed:

“In CVUSD there has been a wide difference in the math instruction between classrooms.  Teachers that prefer constructivism choose to use only the EM textbooks and avoid supplementation.  Instructors that follow a more traditional approach, such as the ones teaching at Wethersfield Elementary, chose never to use the EM textbooks except as a supplement on occasion.  This creates a wide variation in the type of math instruction students receive.

On one occasion a parent has reported that his child’s entire class (according to the teacher) had failed an exam.  The teacher then decided to give credit for wrong answers (if you got within 10 of the actual answer).  So a child who had initially received a score that would be an F was actually given a B grade.

EM promotes the use of calculators beginning in kindergarten.

EM has inadequate skill and drill practice problems, students can fail to obtain mastery of math facts or standard algorithms, and are weak in computational skills.

The EM spiral moves much too quickly through far too many concepts, leaving students merely exposed to a myriad of math concepts rather than mastering the basics.

EM introduces a multitude of problem solving methods rather than focusing and practicing with the standard algorithms to automaticity.  This causes a great amount of confusion for students.

Parents are not able to help with homework, especially when the unfamiliar EM algorithms are used (lattice method of multiplication etc.)

Previous textbook reviews have indicated that EM failed to provide adequate instruction in fractions, EM did not teach the standard long division algorithm, and EM did not provide adequate instruction of division with decimals.

EM can leave students woefully unprepared and lacking in an understanding of decimals.”

The State That Rejected Everyday Mathematics – Texas:

In 2007, the Texas State Board of Education voted to reject the 3rd grade version of Everyday Mathematics from its state approved math textbook list. Click here to read the Education Week story about it, and click here to read the New York Sun’s take on the decision at the time, and how it reflected on New York City public school’s decision to adopt Everyday Math in 2002.

One of the reasons the Texas BoE rejected the 3rd grade edition of Everyday Mathematics was its inadequate attention to computational skills. Of the eight textbooks submitted for adoption (i.e. SRA Real Math, Saxon Math, enVisionMATH, Texas Math, Texas HSP Math, Think Math!,Texas Math, and Everyday Math) Everyday Math received the lowest ranking of “Poorest” (on a rubric of “Best”, “Better”, “Fair”, “Poor” and “Poorest”.) Click here for the chart summarizing the Computation Skills evaluation of the eight texts.