Teacher Bonuses and ‘Old Math’

Re “Give Success a Big Payoff,” Commentary, Jan. 30: Howard Miller’s proposal to give teachers a $50,000 bonus if they agree to take a group of kindergarten students, stay with them four years and are successful in teaching 80% of them to read at the third-grade level has a major flaw. I live in an area served by some of the schools Miller would like to impact with this approach, and my friends who teach there tell me that they are happy to have 50% of the students who enter in September still enrolled in their classes in June. How does Miller propose to keep a class together for four years?

Scarcity of affordable housing, uncertain employment and changing family structures all contribute to changes in residence and result in shifting classroom enrollment.

ANNA ROBERTS

Los Angeles

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Re “Old Math, Good Math,” editorial, Jan. 29: I teach 11th-grade math using an integrated approach at the high school that has the No. 2 API rating in L.A. County, the California Academy of Mathematics and Science. Contrary to the impression given in the editorial, an integrated approach where students’ learning builds on their previous learning is neither “fuzzy” nor so new.

Integrated math is what the rest of the world (noted in your graph) teaches. Students learn the concepts of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, probability, statistics and pre-calculus as they fit together. If the “old way” was so good, why did only the so-called “best” students get to take algebra and geometry?

BETSY ADAMS

Rancho Palos Verdes

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Let’s assume significant statewide progress toward improvement of student achievement on the SAT-9. Test results will start to cluster nearer the top. What happens when the publisher re-norms the test and scores are again spread across the “normal” curve of distribution? What will happen is that we’ll be back to square one in the competition for rewards and fears of state reprisals.

Let’s adopt valid, reliable, criterion-referenced assessment and embed the items in the day-to-day curriculum, with maybe a final at the end of the year. A test will be just one more practical exercise and part of the daily routine. Students, teachers, schools and districts will be compared with authentic criteria rather than each other. And teachers will know immediately when and what remedial action is required rather than waiting until the end of the year to get the news, when the corrective hurdles and negative consequences to students are much higher.

DON ROBINSON

Garden Grove