I am writing this to explain why I supported the adoption of Mathematics: Modeling our World.  Really, there is only one reason:
it is the best thing for the students of West Valley.

While we may not agree on whether the WASL should drive our curriculum, we should be able to agree that while it is herewe need to do everything that we can to give our students the best opportunities to perform well on it.  The reality is that the WASL is just the accountability piece of a much larger picture.  It is the tool used to assess the portions of the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR's in education-speak) that can be assessed in a timely manner.

Many more of the EALR's are to be monitered within the classroom, and people in the state of Washington were not the ones that dreamed all of this up.  The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has had recommendations in place since the late 80's that were adapted by our state and called the EALR's in Mathematics.

Following the publishing of the NCTM Standards (the recommendations mentioned above), the National Science Foundation (NSF) made available grant money for the development of curricula that addressed these Standards.  Various publishers had dabbled in mixing up the traditional textbook series, but it generally amounted to little more than a reorganization of chapters, which does not address the spirit of the Standards.  Now, with some money behind the movement, some real changes were beginning.

If it ain't broke...

When West Valley began looking for new math curriculum, it was quickly decided that with only 30% of our students passing the math portion of the WASL at the 10th grade, we needed to move away from our traditional texts.  Our approach was "broke", no little adjustments were going to cut it.  With that behind us, we looked ahead and explored the 5 high school curricula that had recieved the NSF grants.  After two years of deliberating, we were down to two choices.  The one that I originally favored was very hands-on, and very non-traditional, but still had a very "science" feel to it that appealed to me. 

No Kindred Nerd Spirits

Then I was reminded that what appeals to me is rarely what appeals to my students.  It was painful to be forced to deal with myself as the math nerd that I am, but it led me to favor a curriculum that had a much broader appeal:  Mathematics: Modeling Our World.

What were these people thinking?

I was not involved in authoring the curriculum, but I think that I may have some idea of the conversations that went on in the development.  I envision a discussion about how so many students have become disenchanted with mathematics.  The stigma of mathematics being "hard" has so pervaded our culture that we actually have parents who tell their kids that it is okay if they
don't do well in math because, "I was never any good at it either."  What can we do to present it in such a way that it will be seen as the time-saving, money-making, extremely useful tool that it is?  We have always attracted a certain group of students (the ones who are just like us), but are we turning away students that might be able to use what we have to offer to advance us beyond
where we can imagine going?  How broad is our application?  What we teach to beginning math students has always resembled a long highway with no off-ramps; you can't get to the next place in the road without passing this place in the road.  The biggest problem is that most of those students break down before they ever get to see what is just over the horizon.  As math teachers, we have seen the vast city there, with its entertwining roadways and innumerable intersections.  There must be a way to share all that with young students, from the very beginning.  This is what Mathematics: Modeling Our World attempts to do, and does very well.  The interconnectedness of topics within mathematics, as well as the relationship that mathematics has with the world that we work in and with other disciplines is emphasized from the very beginning.

What, really, do we use math for?

It's all in the title: Modeling Our World. Math is its most useful when it is helping us understand the situation that we are in, and giving us clues of how we can use our situation to make the world a better place.  Lest you think that I am stepping onto an environmental soapbox, I'll let you define what would make your world a better place.  If a better place for you is one in which you have buckets of money laying around the house, that's fine, the right model can move us in that direction.  If your better place is one in which we no longer depend on fossil fuels, then there is a model waiting out there for you, too.

Where do I keep my buckets of money?

The truth is, I love my pure mathematics.  If I were alone in my own little world, I would do math for math's sake all day long (with occasional breaks for fishing and basketball).  So, if I can't see how to use math to help me get rich, how can I expect your kids to figure it out?  Here is your answer:  If I don't produce a truck-load of students that are smarter than I am, then I am not doing my job.  My job, as I see it, is to equip kids with an extra tool that they can use in conjunction with their other tools, talents, and interests to do their jobs better than they could have without mathematics. 

Mathematics:Modeling Our World helps me do that much more effectively.