From the Loop: A Review of

The Principal’s Guide to Raising

Math Achievement

Book by Elaine McEwan 

This book review was sent to Shelley Nelson’s Education Loop by Donna Garner.  Those wishing to join this information loop can reach Shelley at MRSHORN@ aol.com.

 Elaine came out with another excellent book for principals last year that I read over Christmas and want to highly recommend. One of our Illinois Loop members, Frank Allen, who is a former NCTM president, contributed some excellent material and is recognized in the acknowledgments.  In the introduction to “The Principal's Guide to Raising Math Achievement” (published by Corwin Press), Elaine describes to school administrators the four goals of her book:

a. To convince you of the power that rests in you and your faculty to make numeracy a reality for each of your students;

b. To introduce you to the current controversies in math instruction;

c. To set forth some of the most recent research in mathematics instruction so that you and your faculty can make informed               decisions;

d. To share with you how you can change what you're doing to make a powerful difference. 

As with Elaine's other books, this latest one contains the same clear language, illustrative stories, and humor that are signatures of her writing.  Through the first chapters, she clearly presents US mathematics achievement, or lack of it, and the current issues involved in today's Math Wars.  She introduces that topic by stating, “The swirling discussions and debates regarding mathematics education are enough to give administrators vertigo.” 

Her third chapter on “Research-Based Decision Making” is one I wish every school administrator had to commit to memory. Elaine establishes this focus as the basis for any and all curricular decision making, using it to set the tone for issues discussed in the rest of the book. (i.e. Calculators - boon or boon-doggle; Sage on the stage or guide on the side; Effective teaching - the key to raising math achievement). 

  For the sake of space, I won't go into all of the specifics of subsequent chapters, but throughout her discussion of topics, Elaine weaves her own experiences as an instructional leader as well as factual discussion about our misconceptions about how math is  “really” taught in Japan.  Ending as she typically does when writing for school administrators, Elaine concludes by presenting “Thirty-Plus Practical Things” administrators can start doing immediately to raise math achievement in their schools. 

  Whether one buys this for his or her own knowledge or gives this to an Administrator-who-needs-to-learn as a present, or as an "anonymous gift", he/she can be assured that any reader will walk away much more articulate about current math issues ... and hopefully more resistant to simply believing the latest faddish claims.