Dear fellow petitioners, The Alberta Provincial Achievement Test scores are out and it is getting worse for our children: http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/eggen-worried-about-sliding-math-scores What have we parents, professionals, mathematicians been telling the Education Ministers and Ministry over the past two years? I appreciate hearing Minister Eggen finally acknowledging that there is a problem, but how many more students will have to fail before Minister Eggen puts an end to this discovery math curriculum once and for all? You would think the falling scores and 18,000 petitioners (more than the number who voted for Eggen) against the new math are convincing enough reasons to act boldly for our children’s sake, but here we have Minister Eggen praising the teaching of multiple strategies: http://globalnews.ca/video/2269822/albertas-education-minister-voices-concerns-over-provincial-math-scores Together, we have weathered through so much politics. I dare say that our united stance had led to the political demise of former Minister Jeff Johnson followed by Minister Gordon Dirks. I have no doubt that Minister Eggen's fate would be similar should he fail to follow through fully on our/the mathematicians' recommendation to stop the discovery math. We have made some gains (the reinstatement of the times table, the reemphasis on mastery of the basics, now the inclusion of the algorithms in the curriculum), but we will not rest until Minister Eggen clarifies Jeff Johnson's 2014 clarifications by explicitly declaring that our children DO NOT need to "explore strategies". Just strike out the "explore strategies" phrase. We do not need our children's time wasted on multiple, convoluted, illogical pathways. Give them the time to practice and master the standard methods and let them go on to higher math and actual problem solving. Teachers will know which students require alternative strategies. Don't hold our children back and weaken their skills. We also will not rest until they halt the Inspiring Education initiative, which is an incarnation of the discovery/inquiry-based fad. We cannot let this experiment infect the rest of our school system and cause the same harm to our children in other subjects as they did in mathematics. How can they “read to learn” when you’re deemphasizing the importance of learning to read? The saddest part of Inspiring Education is the little known fact that its Ministerial Order is currently replacing our school libraries, one by one, and no one is stopping them....not even Minister Eggen. Here's one parents account of what’s happening: "Our elementary school has let the ‘librarian’ go and started to cull books. Kids are told to now call it a Learning Commons and are allowed to play there." To think, a generation of children with no “library” or “librarians” in their vocabulary… So, if you're writing to the minister, please remind Minister Eggen that he still needs to honour his promise to meet with me and the team. How can we trust a minister who doesn't honour his word? How do we respect a minister who doesn't want to personally listen to us, our children’s advocates? Will Minister Eggen demonstrate that he is and can do better than his predecessors? I once had faith in him...I once thought he was the change... Kindest regards, Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies http://www.albertansforeducation.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Alberta-Math-Petition-715037091853017/ On another note, I met with interim PC leader Ric McIver on October 8th. He was respectful and seemed to listen and be understanding of our concerns. He stated that he is in support of our cause to reemphasize the algorithms/basics in mathematics. I asked him to take a stand against Inspiring Ed and it sounds like he would as he acknowledges that Inspiring Education is "crooked" and that a mistake was made. He will talk to his party and make a statement. Hopefully, his party appreciates the fact that we took them down for not listening to us. They should not make the same mistake by not repairing the damage that their former peers had unleashed on our children.