Slice of Life: Intervention for My Average Child

My daughter came home with a letter from her teacher today. Her teacher recommends she stay after school for some help with math. I’m not really shocked that a child of mine would need help understanding math. But Amy is in first grade. The highest level of math they’ve been working on is adding one to numbers up to ten. I emailed her teacher with some questions. And I’m more confused than ever about public education after reading her response.

The teacher gave a pre-test for a big math unit, testing the students on adding +0, +1, +2, +3, and +4. And Amy got 70%. On a pre-test. With problems she’s never seen before. And a great intervention is needed. If secondary students got 70% on a pre-test, it seems to me a lot of teachers would assume they don’t need to spend a lot of time covering the material. After all, 70% is average.

I imagine I’ll give consent to extra help at the recommendation of her teacher, but the chasm in attitude between what I see in elementary school and what I sense in secondary schools is alarming to me. There are about 26 students in my daughter’s class. We’ll be dealing with more than 100. We’re not going to be able to worry much about the kids at 70%, are we?