Solving the Washington state math education problem
Two years ago the Washington math education community unraveled. Merely half of students passed the math WASL. Almost 50 percent of college freshmen required remedial math classes. Parents found their children were not learning basics such as multiplication tables or long division.
Yet, the education community kept championing the “reform math” teaching philosophy that was not working. Critics correctly observed that reform math devalued the conventions and fluencies necessary to success in mathematics at higher levels – skills such as quick recall of the multiplication tables, proficiency with standard algorithms and algebra properties.
The governor, the Legislature, the state Board of Education, and a statewide uprising of parents, teachers and professionals recognized the math problem and went to work to solve it.
A math advisory panel of parents, teachers, high-tech professionals, university mathematicians and educators was convened. The panel and its consultant were to review grade-level expectations for math and guide their rewrite.
Too much in reform math was left to ad hoc invention by the student. Everyone agreed that the rote memorization used in the past was not an option. We restored neglected foundations without sacrificing conceptual understanding – the ability to recognize mathematic relationships in real-world situations, write equations and solve problems. Fluency and understanding are both essential.
Washington now has an excellent set of mathematics standards. Fundamental content of mathematics is clear, as are the expectations that students achieve a high level of rigor, fluency and conceptual understanding. If educators embrace these standards, you should see an improvement in what your children are learning. Massachusetts enhanced standards in 2000 and their results have soared.
Poor textbooks were a sore point with many parents and teachers, so the Legislature also charged the state board and the superintendent of public instruction to review and recommend exemplary math curriculum.
We were pleased to find two exceptional programs that brought the best of math teaching philosophies together for kindergarten through fifth grade. Three strong programs for sixth through eight grade were also found.
But there are some loose ends.
•A strong high school curriculum was not found. Only one program met minimum criteria for mathematical soundness, according to the state board’s independent outside consulting mathematicians. Recommending textbooks that are compromised by unsoundness or poor alignment would be a disservice to the student, the teacher, the parent and the taxpayer.
Former Superintendent Terry Bergeson commissioned a competing report from OSPI written by supporters of reform math which claims all programs are sound. She also relaxed the rules, ignored misalignment with standards and placed a reform curriculum called Core-Plus in her proposal. No wonder we suffer poor math education when leaders “juice” the numbers.
Flustered by Bergeson’s shenanigans and disappointed with findings, the state board has asked new Superintendent Randy Dorn to review additional programs before making a final recommendation.
•Replace the WASL. The phrase “assessment drives instruction” means tests should provoke teaching of rigor, fluency and understanding. The test must be useful to the teacher, easy to administer, quick to grade and accurate in measuring student performance. New assessments will reflect rigorous standards and are a central focus of Superintendent Dorn’s administration.
•The integrated math dilemma. Reform-style programs intermingle topics of algebra and geometry over three years in novel and varied ways. The plethora of integrated programs has no agreement on what is taught when. Testing students from these many nonaligned programs with a standard assessment invites a train wreck of low scores. Students moving between schools with dissimilar programs miss essential topics and fall behind. Also, Core-Plus, the most popular of the integrated lot, was found mathematically unsound.
Participating on the math advisory panel was a great experience. Everyone was at the table. We did not always agree, but we did make amazing progress toward a balanced solution. Yet philosophical extremes remain at odds. Already one group of reform math educators is lobbying to undo our accomplishments and pursue already failed solutions.
What Washington has done is solidly in the center of a national tide change recommended this past year by the National Math Advisory Panel, a blue-ribbon assembly of the nation’s leading authorities on mathematics and education.
Washington math education is now headed in the right direction.