Kentwood schools new Math in Focus: Singapore Math curriculum
adding up for students, teachers GRAND RAPIDS, MI - There were
no collective groans or sighs by students at Kentwood's Bowen
Elementary School when given math tasks, not even for a word
problem that began "The runway at an airport is 10,000 feet
long." The fifth-grade classes, of various levels of ability,
moved confidently through their assignments using the school
district's new curriculum, Math in Focus, based on a framework
developed by the Singapore Ministry of Education in 1980. The
slowed-down, drill-down approach to ensuring students master a
concept such as fractions is growing in popularity in the United
States. Singapore students have consistently demonstrated
exceptional math achievement on international tests. For
example, on the 2009 Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA) given to 15-year-olds, Singapore had the
second highest average score for math, 562, while the U.S.
ranked 31st out of the 65 countries with an average