California Teachers Can Now Choose to Use Singapore Math Textbooks

Adapting a curriculum that has produced math students ranked first in the world three times in a row seems like an obvious choice for a school district. However, when that curriculum is developed by a country as small and as vastly different as Singapore it takes a certain amount of humility on the part of state. Singapore Math announced today that California has decided to allow it's teachers to use state funds to order texts adapted from the Singapore's Ministry of Education.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study looks at, among other things, student math performance and is conducted globally every four years. The last three releases, conducted in 1995, 1999, and 2003, ranked Singapore students at the top. The studies have been widely cited and have led to a huge interest in Singapore math from homeschoolers in the United States.

The texts approved for use in California substitute American dollars for Singapore currency, and American proper names and spelling for Singapore and British spelling. Classroom instruction in Singapore is given in English, with a strong influence of British conventions. The types of lessons in the textbooks are different than standard American lessons because they focus on illustrated, step by step word problems.

"The presentation is astonishingly clear and child-friendly, yet is mathematically sophisticated," said Thomas Parker, a mathematics instructor at Michigan State University. "Students learn through carefully-designed problem sets. By grade six, the Singapore texts are one to two years ahead of U.S. texts, and the students are extremely well-prepared to start algebra."

Fifth grade teachers at a Los Angeles elementary taught from an earlier edition during the 2005 - 2006 school year and saw almost 30% more students meet the state's math proficiency standard than in the previous year. A math coach for the district, Robin Ramos, said the children enjoyed the textbooks and the scores reflected how much of change was needed.