At last night’s “work session” meeting of the Board, several different strategies were discussed for improving on the latest round of disappointing PSSA/PVAAS scores, but changing the math curriculum never came up. This was surprising to me because changing a curriculum is a proven no-cost (or low-cost) way to affect student achievement. When it was time for public comment, I asked the Board what exactly it would take for SCASD to consider changing the core math programs. Would SCASD’s PSSA scores sliding even further, into the bottom half of PA districts, be enough, or would a petition signed by 1,000 parents demanding a change, or is there nothing that would do the trick?
To his great credit, Board President Rick Madore (who voted for the “Investigations” purchase last spring) answered the question by saying that in his mind there is a “sense of urgency” created by the PSSA scores and that, for him, “the math curriculum is on the table” as a means to address the problem. A “math curriculum update” is on the agenda for the December 21 Board meeting.
Perhaps in response to Dr. Madore’s comments, one of the SCASD math curriculum coordinators addressed the Board in order to make the point that so many of the 3rd and 4th graders in SCASD are judged proficient by the PA standards that there is no room for improvement from a curriculum change. If anything, he said, all that is needed with respect to the math curriculum is a “tweak”.
The Band-Aid approach to math is just not good enough. Thanks for being there, Steve, and raising the question of why not change the core curriculum in the face of declining test score rankings. As it is, classroom teachers are scrambling to fill in the holes of Investigations.
Oh my. My son was judged to be “proficient” in 2nd grade math, but his pre-test that the teacher showed me told a different story. Out of 5 math problems he scored “advanced” on two, “basic” on two, and “proficient” on one, therefore, averaging out to “proficient” overall. The killer for me was that his two “basic” scores were more to do with his inability to use language, rather than to use math. On one problem in particular, he was not able to use enough “math words” do describe a geo-block. Proponents say that Investigations teach language skills, but THERE IS NO DIRECT INSTRUCTION of language skills. It makes kids weak in written language skills appear worse in math. ARGH. Don’t talk to me about tweaking.