Pundit parents

The Education Wonks have done it again and assembled a delicate smörgåsbord from the edusphere.

What caught my attention, in particular, was a pundit parent's experience with EM: If your school has Everyday Math. Fortunately, there are parents who care enough about education to make an end-run around fuzzy math by either buying the right books, teaching their kids, hiring a tutor or tutoring program or all of the above.

The post also contains a long, long (and I mean looong) response from a true believer in fuzzy math, replete with accusations of "bald-faced lies" and the like.

I have often wondered to what extent the effects of fuzzy math are distorted by interference from parents. Imagine a district using fuzzy math and a number of students doing splendidly on tests (assuming the tests are not fuzzy tests). Then the results are trumpeted by the district and seen as vindication. But it turns out the results are due to what pundit parents and many others like her did: getting their kids the benefit of real math.