Reader comments
Learn from Dixon's success

This sounds like a great idea, but where is the money going to come from? Utah schools can't implement this unless they get more money.

Nice job.

I think Dixon has a lot more than 25% minority students. I would say it is closer to 35%-40%.

I really hope that Dixon has a better way to teach math, but it sounds like more information is needed to understand their success. Using "poverty" indicators may not be applicable in select places like Utah county, because the impoverished parents may be upper middle class students who temporarily have lower incomes. Let's take a closer look and see if their techniques hold up to more scrutiny.

The only thing more conservative then schools is society as a whole. Just look at Alpine and their new math program which has people up in arms all over northern Utah County. People want one program to fix everyone well I don't think that will work. Every school has different populations, different expectations, and different resources to draw from. There is also that jealousy thing with success with people tearing down people because they did well in something. Schools need to be given the freedom and money to work within their own situations to achieve success. One size does not fit all nor does having to answer to a vocal minority. Fixing schools is a lot more complicated then replicating one school who appears to be getting it right. I don't think there are very many teachers or principals that want to have their schools fail they just don't have the support/resources to make them succeed.

On the Utah Schools.org web site, Dixon Middle School ranks 126 out of 184 middle schools in the state for academics (based on the Iowa Test scores).

If they are surprisingly higher in math scores as measured by another specific test, the answer is probably a great math teacher...not a new way to teach math or alternative math curriculum.

In other words, replicate the great teacher!