Dear Ms. Malkin,
I usually agree with your ideas, however I must disagree with your opinion of the Everyday Math curriculum. I retired last June after teaching 321/2 years. I taught K through 12th grades at various times over my career. My last assignment was teaching 4th and 5th grade Reading, Writing and Math. I was assigned to the same school for the last five years and this school introduced the Everyday Math Program at the beginning of my first year there. Over the course of these five years, I have seen the students' math skills skyrocket. They understand concepts that I was teaching my 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. ( Third and Fourth Graders are learning about positive and negative numbers,geometry concepts and problems, and beginning algebra.)
I also, was very upset when this program was introduced.I wondered how the students were going to understand how to figure an addition problem using many different stratgies. However, The students thrived using this math. Students who had difficulty with regular addition loved using the partial sum algorithym.
As far as teachers not teaching basic facts,I can assure you that they are teaching and testing them. Unfortunately,basic facts need to be practiced at home. If parents do not take the time to practice with their children,many children will not learn them quickly.As we all know,every child can learn but some are lucky enough to learn after seeing a fact once and others need to see the same fact 50 to 100 times.
Also, I know that some teachers will not follow the curriculum because they do not like it ,instead of giving it a try. I hope that you will take another look at some of these Math Programs. Talk to many different teachers before coming to a conclusion.