The Board asked several excellent questions, but also missed the opportunity to dig into the report to challenge conclusions the administration drew based on faulty data (see my next post), and to highlight some of the real negative trends in the data. Even worse, by not questioning the data, the Board may accept a report which does not accurately portray the true state of our elementary school math achievement. You can’t turn around a bad situation when you don’t think it is a bad situation. You have to admit you have a problem before you can tackle it. And (wait for it) Houston, we have a problem!
Example: Dundee has improved from 93.4% of students being Proficient in 2006-7 to 96.4% of students being Proficient in 2010-2011. Something to cheer about? Well, given that Proficient on the CT test is barely Basic on the national (NAEP) test, probably not. And not even mentioned in the highlights (lowlights?) of the report is that the Advanced percentage has dropped from 58.6% to 43.5%, and that the Goal percentage has dropped from 89.0% to 82.9% over those same five years. Seems it is only the Dundee parents who are worried about this one.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the data are very good. But it seems (and the presenters admit it) that some of the gains are the result of very heavy focus of resources (e.g., math coaches for teachers, sometimes used to actually teach). And when the resources go away, the gains go away. To paraphrase one of the presenters, short term focus seldom produces long term results.
The Chair of the Board, Leslie Moriarty, asked an excellent question relating to the slower growth at the elementary school level (in reality, the elementary Advanced and Goal percentages overall are declining, not rising). She asked whether we were at a structural disadvantage to our comparison districts (DRG A and B), from such factors as curriculum, delivery, class structure (hetero- or homogeneous by ability, what use to be called tracking), instruction time, or K-2 readiness (for the CMT’s).
The presenter agreed that this was a good question, but difficult to answer. He replied, though, that the core math program (Everyday Math) was “excellent” and the “most popular” (should this be a popularity contest?). The presenter was even prepared with a list (supplied by you know who) of the districts using Everyday Math. He added that nothing precludes us from using a different program where warranted. An example might be for English Language Learners and Special Education students, since Everyday Math is a language intensive program which might place these groups at a disadvantage. Another example is for those on the top end of the scale, since the spiraling structure in EDM is a large negative.
Peter Sherr followed up with another set of questions, backed up by anecdotal stories of the failures of EDM. He asked how do we know the efficacy of EDM (didn’t get an answer, but I think the test scores provide one), and when/how can we accelerate a review of the curriculum (across all Math programs). Dr. Lulow responded that the administration knows this is on parent’s minds. They are open to starting a review now and have been, based on their previous responses. That’s good news, but new news, unless I am interpreting their previous written responses incorrectly. Anyway, it seems we got their attention.
A major concern of the administration is that a Math curriculum change might significantly impact the elementary teachers, if it occurs at the same time as another curriculum change. This is true and there is no arguing the point. But it is difficult to judge given that a schedule of reviews hasn’t been published (at least from what I could find on the E-001 policy section of the BoE website) since 2005. Dr. Lulow noted that it is the Board’s decision to make as to the timing of curriculum implementations, based on their judgment of need. Ms. Moriarty asked for an updated schedule.
The second part of the discussion centered on the Common Core State Standards. Barbara O’Neill asked whether supplemental material was going to be centrally coordinated, so that the transition would be consistent across the district. This is a problem now, since the supplemental material which teachers use to make up for the shortcomings in EDM is not consistent across the district, so students are at the mercy of the individual schools to understand and try to address the problems with Everyday Math. The presenter indicated that the material would be centrally coordinated.
The presenter then reiterated the administration’s position that the “change we have to incorporate into our system are not dramatic,” and repeated the “published number by the state is a 92% match, and that really takes into effect an Exact Match, a Near Match, or within a grade or two, one way or the other, which I’m not necessarily advocating as a match.” Repeat after me: WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 24% WHICH IS A WEAK MATCH?
At least the presenter indicated that they were not considering buying the Common Core version of Everyday Math. Yeah.
The elementary school teachers are now starting to look at the alignment between Common Core and our current curriculum. My bet is that this process, if done well, will result in a literal tearing up of the current workbooks and homework books in order to get lessons into the right year, and to discard the unimportant things (that should be a big portion of Everyday Math). Then all the new stuff has to be added.
But wait, EDM uses spiraling. And the new standards demand MASTERY. My old British colleagues had a term “fit for purpose.” Translated to American English this means: does the intended solution really solve the problem or is fit for the purpose for which it was built. Do we really think EDM is fit for purpose?
Prior to the meeting, I provided the Board of Education with my analysis of the Math Monitoring Report, which was forwarded to the administration.
See post entitled Back to the Board below for a link to the Math Monitoring Report.
For a video of the meeting, click here
then, to watch the Math portion, move to 1:21 on the time line when the whole thing loads.
No comments:
Post a Comment