Sacramento-area districts deal with problem math books
Five times three equals five.
Second-graders at 79 Sacramento-area schools can find that equation in their new math books.
Other students using the math series are being asked to count the flies in the playground – only there's no picture of a playground on the page.
These are just a few of the errors in the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill math series that two area school districts – Sacramento City Unified and Folsom Cordova – started using this year in kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms.
Among the others: lesson plans that don't connect to homework assignments; tests that don't match textbook lessons; student texts that don't parallel teachers' books; and mistakes in the answer keys.
"Teachers begin to question themselves," said Folsom Cordova teacher David Chun. "It develops a student mistrust in the program."
It's not unusual to find occasional mistakes in textbooks, according to educators. But the errors popping up in the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill series are unusually pervasive: In Folsom Cordova – where some teachers have students looking for the bloopers as a learning exercise – the fourth
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/01/2648009/sacramento-area-districts-deal.html#ixzz0jrRYHczO
