Let's Talk about the South Dakota K - 12 Proposed Math Standards Part 1

First of all, I want to thank the members of the Math Standards Review Committee for all of the work they have done and continue to do to try to get the proposed K - 12 math standards where they need to be. They were given quite a task and having only 2 days to work together in Pierre really wasn't enough time to do what they wanted--at least some members of the committee feel that way. I know that they are continuing to work on the standards, based on public feedback. 

I also want to thank all the wonderful math educators and parents that have submitted feedback on the standards. A special shout out to the Watertown school district for 3.5 pages of feedback on the K - 4 standards! In total, there are about 25 pages of feedback, but the link above has some comments cut off so it could be longer. The proposed standards themselves only make up 37 pages so the fact that there are 25 pages of public comment is incredible, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed comments. 

However, the fact that there are 25 pages of comments on a 37-page document says something about the document itself. It seems to say that there is a lot of stuff missing! While I understand why some wanted to "simplify" the standards, it seems like now they might be too simple. 

Math is a complicated subject and it is difficult to teach well. I doubt that people will disagree with that statement. Our current standards often give examples of how to teach some of the standards, which is helpful to teachers, especially new teachers. For reference, the current standards are about 81 pages. So, we have lost 44 pages, and I feel like that is a lot of information to lose.

If we look at states that do well on the 4th grade and 8th grade math portions of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the length of their K - 12 mathematics standards documents, we see that they tend to be long, as illustrated in Table 1. I want to point out that when counting pages, I didn't count the introduction pages or appendices, just the pages with the standards and any explanations at the beginning of the grade level.

Table 1: States that score well on the NAEP and page length of their math standards

Again, math isn't easy to teach, and teachers need guidance to help students learn and achieve their full potential. Minnesota recently rewrote their standards and their new document is actually longer, not shorter. Another thing that I find troubling is that I feel like there should be more emphasis on Data Analysis in our standards because we live in a data-driven world.

Where Everyone is a Bright Spot

It has been four years since my last post on this blog. I had recently been chatting with my students in our Technology class and they encouraged me to get back to it. Apparently, I have a lot to say!

Once again, I just got back from the 2026 SD STEM Ed conference in Huron, SD. This conference was very different for me because I am currently serving as President of SDCTM, so I had a lot more responsibilities. While I was nervous, everything went well, and I stayed on script (mostly).

Some of the highlights for me were:

• Meeting RunningHorse Livingston and getting to interact with him and hear his story! Storytelling is so important for our students and I think we need to share our own stories more.
• Getting to see John Golden, one of my Twitter friends, and participate in one of his sessions, with my students and alumna.
• Hosting important conversations about the Proposed SD K - 12 Math Standards. A shout-out to the Department of Education for bravely showing up to listen to awesome math teachers.
• Watching alumni present and shine--we had three of them present. Colin Marsh had a session on Building Thinking Classrooms, where people could share their journey, asking for advice, and give tips. Leanne Holdorf did a session on how she uses Breakout Boxes in her classes--with a breakout for everyone to solve. Emily Siemonsma shared lessons that she is creating from her experience working at SURF, where students have to determine airflow at certain places underground based on the information given.
• Presenting awards to some awesome people and getting to witness awesome teachers get recognized for all they do every day!
• Hanging out with some of the best math, science, and STEM teachers in South Dakota!

I stayed an extra night so that I could watch project pitches by teachers in the STEM Leadership Cohort, funded by the E-CORE project. I am involved in the E-CORE project and I wanted to hear about projects these awesome teachers had decided to lead. And, let's just say, I was so inspired by them! They were vulnerable, creative, and so passionate about their projects. It is going to be on my list of things to do after the conference every year!

One of the teachers wanted to acknowledge others for their hard work, dedication, and inspiration, so she had one of our friends, Kevin Smith, create a thank you card. I don't think it is on the website yet, but he has some amazing items! 

I want to thank all educators and exhibitors who attended the 2026 SD STEM Ed conference. You are all bright spots, which we desperately need in education right now!

Crisis in Education: We Can No Longer Sit Back and Watch

In the August 2014 IMPACT State publication, I wrote a commentary called, “Where have all the teachers gone?” While I am not usually one to say “I told you so,” I feel like that commentary could be published again right now and it would still be very relevant.

Last week there were numerous articles about teachers leaving the profession in record numbers and fewer students enrolling in education programs. These include:

From CNN, “Teachers are leaving and few people want to join the field. Experts are sounding the alarm”

From the Wall Street Journal, “Teachers are quitting, and companies are hot to hire them”

From NPR, “More than half of teachers are looking for the exits, a poll says”

Hopefully, as citizens, we are getting the message. Teachers are burned out, they are tired, they are not appreciated, and they are not paid well. For a moment, put yourself in a teacher’s shoes or even better yet, substitute in a classroom. If you were a teacher now, would you stay in the profession?

Many of you will say that this burnout is because of the Covid-19 pandemic and while that has certainly played a role, the fact is that teachers are not respected. Well, except between March and June of 2020 when everyone was praising teachers for all of their hard work to educate our children remotely. A headline from the Washington Post says, 'Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars’ — Shonda Rhimes, plus other homeschooling parents on appreciating educators.

Yet, even then, some predicted that the appreciation and respect for teachers wouldn’t last. The Economic Policy Institute asked the question “will it give them a voice in education and their working conditions?” Looking at what teachers in South Dakota are enduring, I believe the answer to that question is NO.

In 2016, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill that would increase our state sales tax by a half-cent to increase teacher pay in the state. This led to SD ranking 48^th in teacher pay, but that was short-lived as we are now back to being 50^th out of 51 in teacher pay.

What can we do? Here are some ideas, many of which are the same ones that I listed in 2014.

1. Respect teachers as professionals.
2. Increase teacher pay, not just the amount of money being allocated to the district.
3. Support teachers—send a thank you email, ask them how they are doing, substitute in the classroom.
4. Provide good mentoring to teachers in their first one to three years. Maybe each new teacher should have two mentors, one in their district that may or may not be in their content area and one outside the district in their content area.
5. Give new teachers an extra preparation period during the school day during their first and second year.

This is the third school year that teachers have had to deal with the pandemic, on top of their regular workload. Except for healthcare workers, many professionals have been allowed to work remotely for their health and safety. We have put teachers in the direct line of fire by not mandating masks in classrooms and giving up on contact tracing.

I just returned from the South Dakota STEM Education Conference, which is co-hosted by the South Dakota Council of Mathematics and the South Dakota Science Teachers Association. The conference was last held in February 2020. Every time I attend this conference I am always inspired by the many excellent math and science teachers in South Dakota. During Saturday's lunch, teachers who plan to retire this year were asked to stand up—everyone looked around the room with worried faces and miraculously no one stood.

There is a crisis in our state and our nation in education. Contact your representatives, substitute in a classroom, run for school board, etc. None of us can afford to sit back and watch because education is the future of our country and that future requires good teachers.

A New Normal

 

Before the fall semester began, I was very apprehensive about how it would go. I was worried about contracting COVID-19 and how that would affect my family. I was dreading wearing a mask, having to use a microphone to teach, and having a video camera in the room. I figured that we would be online within 3 weeks of starting the semester so why bother starting in person.

Today is the end of 5.5 weeks, and my classes are still meeting in person. Despite all of my fears, the semester is going well. I love being back in the classroom—there is nothing better than engaging with students in person. My students are learning a lot and are working hard, both at school and at staying safe by wearing a mask.

No, this semester is not the same as last fall because students aren’t studying in the building, hanging out in the Math Education Library, and faculty’s office doors are shut. But it is wonderful to be back on campus, to see my students in person, and to be in the classroom teaching. I have gotten used to the classroom technology and it seems to be working well for my students.

As the number of COVID cases rises dramatically in my state, I still feel safe going to work. More importantly, I look forward to going to work to see my students and to help them learn more mathematics. Fall 2020 is definitely a unique semester, but it has been a great one so far.

Silent No More

I have watched the events of the last week unfold and I have been silent; as a white privileged female what can I possibly say? I will never understand what BIPOC endure on a daily basis. However, I am very empathetic and after today’s actions, I can no longer be silent.

I am a teacher educator so my job is to prepare math teachers for their future classrooms. So I MUST speak up to set an example for my students. We all need to stand up for what is right, which is something that I have always done, even when it wasn’t popular. You can ask some of my siblings about that.

And while we are supporting #BlackLivesMatter, COVID-19 is killing thousands of Americans every day. In fact, these two things are tied together because COVID-19 affects BIPOC more than white citizens. Both the pandemic and the blatant racism have been fueled by an incompetent leader. The fact that he went into a bunker and shut the lights off at the White House tells us that he is not the leader that we need right now. In fact, he makes things worse every day and it needs to stop. I am pleading with all of you to contact your members of Congress and ask them to use the 25^th Amendment.

Even though the calendar says that it is 2020, I feel like our country has regressed 50 to 60 years. In my opinion, this regression has been caused by our current president. He has gotten away with being racist so some of our citizens think that this behavior is okay. It is NOT okay. Everyone in our country deserves to be treated fairly and justly.

I fear for the future of our country, for my BIPOC family and friends. We cannot stand by and let our country be ruined—we must stand up peacefully and take back America.

After Week 1 of Teaching Online

So my students and I have survived the first week of online classes. Some takeaways from this week are:

• Zoom is a great platform for synchronous classes and is easy for class discussions if you have less than 15 students.
• The breakout rooms feature on Zoom is great, but pre-assigning students to rooms hasn’t worked well for me yet. Some students ended up in the correct room, but I had to manually place most of the students in the correct room. It is still a great way for them to have small group discussion.
• Time seems to go faster than expected. In my 2-hour class on Tuesday, I intended to have discussion for the first hour and then give them an assignment for the second hour. We ended up talking the entire time. I definitely need to change that this coming week as many of my students have class from 8 to 12:15 that day and all classes were synchronous!
• In History of Math, I wanted to use COVID-19 as part of our conversation so we did a problem on Monday, where I asked them if every person in South Dakota could have a circle of radius 2 meters around them without the circles overlapping. And, we do have enough room for that—even extra to invite some friends.
• Then I asked the History of Math students to post on the Discussion Board their thoughts on what impact they believe Covid-19 will have on the History of Mathematics. It was an interesting discussion and I appreciated reading their perspectives.
• In our Assessment course, we had our annual Homework Debate, where we assign students to be either Pro Homework or Con Homework. Then they have to argue their side. They did a great job, but it wasn’t as fun as it would have been in person. We were all in agreement that there needs to be some middle ground in homework so they are writing their homework philosophies and homework policies for homework this week.

One question that I have consistently asked my students every class is “how are you doing?” They seem to be doing well, but some of them feel a bit overwhelmed by all of the homework and coursework this week. I am not sure that university faculty understand that we cannot possibly cover the same material as we had originally planned this semester. This is leaving the students tired, overwhelmed, and anxious. I was talking with a middle school teacher and she said that her administrator told them to “take what we were planning and cut it in half, and then cut it in half and assign that.”

How does one tell a colleague that perhaps you are expecting too much of your students without upsetting them?

The Assignment That Keeps on Giving

Every fall I teach the Geometry for Teachers course at South Dakota State University.  It is the first math content/pedagogy course that our Mathematics with Teaching Specialization majors take. So I find this class especially important because I am starting to build their foundation as a mathematics teacher. Dr. Christine Larson, my awesome colleague, loves that “I get to break them in first.”

The first assignment in the course every fall is a journal entry, where they are to answer the question: Why do you want to be a math teacher? I love lots of assignments in my geometry course, but this is my favorite for two reasons:

• I get to know the students better; and
• They always give me hope.

This semester was no different. First of all, I was really impressed that they all had their assignments submitted by 11:30 when they weren’t due until 1:30. Second of all, I am impressed with these students as people. From this journal entry, I can tell that they are kind, generous, thoughtful and caring. The main reasons that they say they want to be math teachers are: making an impact on students’ lives, having had teachers who influenced them, and sharing their passion and love for mathematics.

Every fall after reading this assignment, I get renewed with hope because we have some really awesome future math teachers. They see the importance of teaching, value what teachers do despite the fact that the pay is poor, and pursue this career despite their family’s opposition.

It helps me realize the importance of my job as a math teacher educator and it makes me so proud of them. While I know some of the students in this class as they are my advisees or I have had them in other classes, I don’t know all of them well. However, I am looking forward to another great fall semester in the geometry for teachers course with these intelligent, thoughtful young adults!