Now, I am not teaching but my child is in first grade in Bellingham schools and I am as pleased as punch in her math learning. She is learning so much about how numbers relate to life and mathematical problem solving and thinking. Her teachers use mainly Investigations but they also supplement with other products. They are excellent teachers. They are happy with Investigations, and for good reason. It is an excellent product.

Children need to be able to be fluent in math and there are many ways of teaching it. In my experience, this means using a variety of math products. But there is no reason Investigations cannot be the main curriculum product used in Bellingham schools. Bhammer and his blog have been on a negative rant about Investigations for more than a year. I have never understood why he does not put his time and energy into his classroom at Happy Valley elementary, learning more ways to successfully implement and supplement Investigations, rather than spending his time writing all this negativeness about it.

But thank you, Tia, for pointing out the truth.

You claim that Investigations “falls neither at the top nor the bottom” of the IES study on curriculum effects. The only way you can believe that is if you haven’t read the study. After all the main finding was, “Student math achievement was significantly higher in schools assigned to Math Expressions and Saxon, than in schools assigned to Investigations and SFAW.” It really doesn’t get any more clear than that.

But if that isn’t compelling enough then just look at the book “Visible Learning” by John Hattie. He analyzed over 50,000 studies on achievement and compiled them in one place. What did he find? That inquiry based programs like Investigations are less effective than those that include teacher directed instruction. That’s exactly why the Fulton County SD in Georgia recently dumped TERC, it’s not because they didn’t understand how it works. Rather it’s because it didn’t work, and student performance was suffering.