Everyday Math (EM) is very teacher dependent. One of the criticisms I've read is that teacher's say they don't have time to play the games and consider the games fluff. Well, the drill and cementing of concepts are in the games. Also, people tend to lump EM, TERC Investigations and the other one which I can't remember the name, all in one basket. From the critiques I've read, Em is the best of the bunch by far. I've seen the workbook for the one I can't recall the name. It was "Explain in words how you got your answer to 2+1." There was a lot of writing involved so for kids w/ writing or reading issues, math is also an issue. Our district has great test scores but I've heard that the number of kids that are math deficient are increasing. Our district does do lots of fact practice and are also teaching the standard algorithm...well at least my son's teacher is. She doesn't assign nearly as many EM worksheets as homework as the other teachers do. Hers come from somewhere else.
EM is actually very Rightstart-ish. HSers often have trouble w/ RS as well b/c they fail to play the games. As great as Singapore Math is, HSers often post how it didn't work for them, her kid hit a wall etc but then someone will ask the question of whether the kid learned to do math the SM way (ie like the thought bubbles) and the answer is "no, i just handed the kid the workbook and they worked the problems." Even great curriculums are bad in the hands of the wrong teacher due to lack of training or the wrong kid (wrong style of learning).
The problem is that in areas where test scores are rising since EM and TERC were introduced, Kumon and the like have sky-rocketed. So you can't attribute the success to the curriculum. I read a newspaper article from upstate NY where the district asked the parents not to afterschool math for 2 years so they could test the effect of EM. the parents refused...they didn't want to gamble w/ their kids.
The one criticism i hear over and over from my teacher friends is that EM is not good for the low end. The topics change too quickly before they fully grasp it and move on to something else.
Also, in a district that uses EM and the students seem to do well, the teachers use pre-testing to test out of a unit. Supposedly, the pre-tests come w/ the teacher's manuals. I asked about pretesting at DS's school and teacher looked at my like I had 3 heads.
