Parents Express Frustration with Reveal Math Curriculum

At recent Board of Education meetings and at the Board’s less formal “Community Coffee” meetings, many parents have voiced their concerns about the somewhat newly adopted Reveal Math curriculum utilized in Scarsdale’s elementary schools. Some of the criticism describes lessons that are too word heavy especially for younger students, students who struggle to read, and for ESL learners. These parents also assert that because their children experience such difficulty with Reveal Math lessons, they have had to seek outside support to enhance their children’s math development.

Dr. Edgar McIntosh, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, has maintained an open door policy welcoming the opportunity to answer parent’s questions and to explain the District’s approach to elementary math curriculum. In an effort to “build trust through transparency,” at the BOE meeting on Monday, March 24th, McIntosh also delivered a detailed presentation “designed to address questions, review research and rationales and offer relevant data and specific examples demonstrating our progress over the past three years.”

McIntosh, joined by the District’s two elementary math coordinators, gave a thorough overview of the extensive process that went into choosing Reveal Math, the research that supports Reveal Math’s approach, and how the student-centered curriculum is implemented in grades K-5.. Viewers were treated to photos and videos demonstrating how students engage in math activities at each grade level including videos of them exploring math problems, taking part in non-Reveal (but aligned) enrichment activities, practicing number routines to build fluency and flexibility, explaining their thinking (though collaborative games), and demonstrating conceptual understanding of complex procedures.

The presentation included graphics demonstrating Scarsdale student’s math proficiency and how they continue to outperform peer districts. 

Additionally, the presentation worked to dispel some of what McIntosh describes as common misperceptions about Reveal Math.

Before ending the presentation, McIntosh made a point to explain the value of the two math coordinators, saying, “Their support extends beyond the classroom to provide guidance for administrators, assisting in decision making processes and ensuring our math program aligns with broader educational goals…Through educator feedback, they continuously assess and adapt our curriculum to meet evolving educational needs, ensuring that it remains relevant and effective.”

McIntosh also stated, “We are in the process of launching a Math Resource website for families and also planning additional parent workshops which will be announced. This will give a chance for us to follow up on this presentation in a smaller setting with materials and hands on opportunities. We also urge our parents to engage our teachers in questions about their child's math journey as the first line of questioning.”

After the presentation, BOE members were afforded time to comment and to ask questions and a robust discussion ensued. Leah Dembitzer shared her appreciation of the thorough presentation but drew attention to parental concern about reading comprehension and reading fluency as an issue with Reveal Math.

Dr. McIntosh responded with recognition that some parts of the curriculum can be language heavy and shared that they have been making some adaptations such as formatting pages to have fewer words. Mcintosh went on to explain that teachers graduate their lessons to meet their students where they are at. As he stated, “When students start school in September, teachers will start by reading the math problems aloud and introducing students to the vocabulary.” He also pointed out that all the other curriculums that the District evaluated and explored, were also much more language heavy as there is a move towards emphasizing conceptual understanding and problem-solving so that students are able to articulate mathematical concepts.

BOE member Colleen Brown added that Scarsdale is fortunate to have such skilled and expert teachers who know how to differentiate the learning and support students using a variety of methods. She also expressed her hope that teachers stay in contact with parents to say, “This is how in partnership, we continue to support your child.” She went on to share, “I think as math instruction changes and evolves and maybe moves away from the way we were taught…that having opportunities for parents to understand what's coming home is something that I think our community has voiced that they need. I think it's important to make sure we spend the time to try to coordinate moving forward. Lastly, now that I have kids in high school, I see they are required to do those types of {math} statements, so I see the value in starting that type of thinking earlier, and I appreciate that.”

BOE member Ron Schulhof also expressed his appreciation for Dr. McIntosh and the math coordinators for the detailed presentation, but he also wondered if the experience outlined in the presentation matched the experience of what parents are seeing at home.

Though the presentation was detailed and comprehensive, several parents who stayed late into the evening to speak during the Public Comment period, expressed their continued concern with the curriculum.

One parent began his public comment by addressing the late hour of the presentation noting that many elementary school parents had to leave the meeting to attend to their children. The father proposed that the District gives the parents a better opportunity to speak up about this issue. He went on to express parents’ desire for improved communication. In addition to a call for a parent surveys, he suggested, “I would like to propose that the district creates a set of publicized adjustments, goals and milestones. It would be great if you could meet in two months in May, before the school year is over, to discuss the progress and address our concerns and as a broad community.”

Another parent, who is also a middle school math teacher from a neighboring district, conveyed his appreciation that Scarsdale has made great strides with the Reveal Curriculum and that students' understanding has improved. He went on to share his concern that, “It appears that the implementation of the Reveal Curriculum may not be universal across all classrooms within the same grade. If it is the Reveal Math program that you have chosen, I would think that there would be more universal implementation across the grade level. It sounds like parents are seeing different things coming home and their kids have different experiences in the schools.”

The father said, “Students would benefit from several additional resources. First, Reveal Math has these replay videos…My daughter and I used to use them at home last year. This year we don't have access to them. They were really beneficial. If these replays are available to some students in the district, shouldn't they be available to all students in the district? Another thing we'd like to see is increased usage of physical and virtual manipulatives.”

After advocating for assessments to be more consistently shared with parents (in order for parents to own a solid understanding of how their child is doing with a given subject matter), he ended his public comment by saying, “There should be some additional fact, fluency component. While Reveal is really strong with conceptual understandings, there's not an emphasis on Fact Fluency. Scarsdale used to use Reflex. That's a nice add on Fact Fluency component…As a middle school math teacher, I see firsthand how students who lack Fact Fluency can struggle even if they currently understand the sixth grade concepts. You need factors and multiples for almost every topic in sixth grade, fractions, decimals, percents, ratios, proportions, and if your Fact Fluency and automaticity is not there, students are going to be behind.”

Another mom of an elementary aged student said she does not oppose Reveal Math and trusts our professional educators to pick the curriculum that would be the best fit for our district. She then shared, “However, considering the extensive community feedback we got, I believe a comprehensive evaluation of Reveal Math should be conducted within the next year, instead of waiting for six years into the implementation…A delayed review will create significant academic consequences, especially for those students who are already facing challenges in math.”

She continued, “The evaluation should be data driven. Should incorporate benchmark performance indicators such as state test statistics. I'm glad to see some of those statistics in the presentation, but I think we should actually go back even further. For example, the Star Rating only shows three years. We should see a comparison when Singapore Math was in place and when Reveal Math got switched.” She advocated that this review should include more teacher feedback as well to ensure that Reveal Math is widely and well-received across all the classroom teachers.

She ended her comment by sharing, “Furthermore, I recommend conducting a parent survey to understand how many students are receiving supplemental math support outside of school. The prevalence of additional tutoring or extracurricular math programs should be considered when we're comparing performance during the period Singapore Math was in place and the periods where we switched to Reveal Math.”

One mom, who happens to also be a PTA president, discussed her third grader’s difficulties with Reveal Math saying, “My child has not struggled with reading comprehension at all, yet she finds the word problems very challenging and often asks for help. To be honest, I sometimes find them difficult to understand.” When this mom asked her child’s teacher about her child’s progress in math, she was told that while her daughter “is understanding all the concepts, she is hesitant, and she asks for help often. She needs more confidence.”

A large concern for this mom is that this lack of confidence will lead to a lack of engagement. In addition, a lack of basic math fluency and too much “productive struggle” will lead to further disengagement. She concluded her statement by saying, “Even though I'm speaking on behalf of myself and not as PTA president, I have spoken to countless parents about their dissatisfaction with Reveal Math. I recognize I cannot speak on behalf of the community, but I can relay that a significant number of families who have spoken to me about Reveal Math have supplemented with Russian Math or Kumon.”

Another mom also shared that her children struggle with Reveal Math and described how, “It took my fifth grader until fifth grade to learn that she can be good at math because there is so much mumbo jumbo and poorly worded word problems.” She added that her, “First grader was crying and had to be comforted outside of the classroom because she was unable to understand a very confusing word problem she had to read in math.” Among other concerns the mom shared, “We all know that early confidence is key to kids enjoying and being engaged in whatever subject that is, and especially math.” She then implored the BOE to return to the Singapore Math curriculum.

Yet another parent urged the district to conduct a survey looking at what percentage of children in the Scarsdale district use outside math support for their children and to gauge parents' satisfaction with the Reveal Math program. She stated, “We need challenging, proven programs that build strong foundations, not a curriculum aimed at meeting minimum state standards. “In a tech world, driven by new innovations, scholars must prioritize excellence in math education, allowing our children to reach their highest potential.”

A concerned father said, “My fourth grade son is a bright student. Reveal Math doesn't work for him. He finishes his homework in no time and is extremely bored and unchallenged in the classroom. But this curriculum doesn't seek to differentiate. Last year, when finishing work early, my son was asked to answer questions in his Reveal Math notebook such as: What helps you feel relaxed when you're frustrated? How do deep breaths help you feel relaxed? What are some ways to connect with your classmates?” After going on to describe how his eldest child, who was taught Singapore Math, is now a thriving math student at SHS, the father questioned, “Why did you change something that was working for Scarsdale, and it's still working for other performing districts in this area?”

One of the last people to comment in person, shared that she too is an experienced educator and expressed her appreciation for the presentation and for the amount of work given to selecting Reveal Math for the District. However, she went on to say, “I'm having a great deal of difficulty understanding how the District believed that Reveal Math was really the best and most appropriate curriculum for early learners. Do understand, I think your presentation was wonderful, but I have not personally experienced anything of what was shown in that presentation. While the Reveal Program seems to attempt to teach essential mathematical concepts in keeping with Common Core, its implementation and the way it's written is far from what I feel is developmentally appropriate for most early learners. One of the most glaring issues is that Reveal Math is language heavy and it relies on lengthy word problems, which are introduced to students far too early (at a time when they are still learning to read and master really basic literacy skills).”

She further explained, “The teachers have to work hard to supplement everything and Reveal Math is asking young students to navigate really dense, lengthy, complicated word problems that are far beyond what their current abilities are. And I heard ‘productive frustration' mentioned a few times, and I think there's a really fine line between productive frustration and overwhelming confusion, which is what my child was experiencing because of Reveal’s word heaviness.”

“Everyone should have a clear understanding after three years of all the available tools. But instead, it sounds like everyone's still trying to figure out how they can get Reveal Math to work. While I know through personal experience, there's no one size fits all program…it sounds like there are definitely better choices out there, and I'm curious to know which math program came in second and maybe even possibly third?” She went on to wonder about the lack of multi sensory aspects and manipulatives in Reveal Math, commenting, “Workbooks are not engaging. Kinesthetic learners are at a complete disadvantage.”

To conclude she shared, “I think the only way to find out how deep this problem runs is not using test scores, because no parent in the district is going to let their kid just just struggle. We're either going to help ourselves, we're going to tutor, or we're going to the Russian School of Math. And I think without polling parents as to what they're doing and how they feel about Reveal, using test scores, is just masking the problem.”

To watch the Math presentation or to hear the public comments in full, see here.