EducationNews.org

Any educator, consultant or contractor that has a financial connection to a publisher or provider of educational programs or services should be required to disclose that connection.  Is there a state law that requires this disclosure? 

This is the same problem that the medical community has been dealing with where researchers are taking consulting money from pharma companies.  The peer reviewed journals are now requiring these researchers to disclose these connections because of the potential for bias / conflict of interest in both the research being performed and the outcomes.

We [WA] have a worse problem in the case of state curriculum selections since district curriculum people will be strongly biased in favor of their prior selections regardless of the fact that the standards have changed.  Even if they weren't, their management will be pushing them to get their district curriculum approved as a cost saving measure.

To me this means that no one involved in prior curriculum decisions nor any person that can be pressured into a particular decision (and hence subject to harassment) can be part of the curriculum advisory committee or on the selection team. 

No one from the education consulting industry or the college Ed community who has provided consulting to publishers or providers of educational programs or services can participate either.  They are all tainted.  

[WA] OSPI [office of superintendent of public instruction] will of course fight this because they are selecting people aligned with their own math philosophy.

...from the list of IMR [instructional materials review] Advisory members, many have vested interests in [their] established reform / discovery math curriculum that at the very least gives the appearance of bias.  So who is left?  Math teachers with math and/or technical training and at least 10 years of experience, people with technical degrees that either work in technical professions or train students in the technical skills needed to enter those professions (e.g. Engineering, Medicine, Science researchers, etc.), people that use math in business like accountants, investment analysts, etc. 

In short, there are many people who can evaluate a proposed Math Curriculum against the new state K-8 standards that were designed from the outset to be understood by both teachers and parents.

In WA we clearly have a problem with math education...  .the insular behavior by OSPI has got to be addressed.  40% of WA 4^th graders can't pass the WASL.  50% of 10^th graders can't pass the WASL.  This has been going on for the last 10 years.  And now you can see that 50% to 60% of HS students attending 2 year colleges for class years 2000-06 need to take remedial math to prepare them for college work. 

How can we reasonably expect anything to change if OSPI loads the committees and review teams with people from inside the tent?  This selection process needs to be removed from the hands of OSPI so the students of WA can have Math curriculum choices made by people who understand math and can objectively assess curriculum content against the standards without bias or fear of job related pressure.

Published May 22, 2008