Emphasis on Traditional Math Urged for District

Los Angeles school officials Tuesday proposed a new program for math instruction that favors traditional methods that emphasize drills and memorization.

The plan recommends that the district buy textbooks from a state-approved list. The list will not be available until January 2001, but the books will be aligned with the state’s standards, which tend to favor the traditional approach.

In a concession to supporters of reform, or integrated math, the plan says that teachers should be allowed to combine reform and traditional methods provided their curriculum is based on a mastery of basic skills.

The Board of Education is expected to make a final decision on the plan next month. Interim Supt. Ramon Cortines said he will offer his recommendation later this month.

“It’s a giant shift in the instruction of mathematics,” said Robert Collins, an L.A. Unified administrator who helped forge the compromise among factions on the math committee.

“We still believe there’s room for reform math,” Collins said. “But there’s no question but that it will be content-rich, standards-aligned and sensitive to basic skills.”

A committee of teachers, administrators and outside consultants has been debating the issue of math instruction since last fall.

Generally, reform math weaves together strands of statistics, geometry and algebra in lessons that often are based on situational problems.

Supporters of reform math contend that their methods make math accessible to a broader range of students. They argue that traditional methods, with their emphasis on drills and memorization, doom most students to failure.

Traditionalists contend that understanding of math comes not from activities but intensive work with formulas, equations, fractions and the like.

Currently, L.A. Unified schools can use traditional or reform methods.