Education Week - November 12, 2014 - Special Report - S19

EDUCATION WEEK n
November 12, 2014
Making Sense of the Math: The Common Core in Practice > www.edweek.org/go/math-report
| S19
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enough years of test scores to compare. But parents, he said, don't
want to gamble on their children's education.
Some teachers have also had problems with the switch.
According to a recent survey conducted for the Georgia board of
education, nearly 85 percent of the 1,019 Georgia high school math
teachers who responded said they would rather use the traditional
pathway than the integrated model now mandated by the state.
"From a purely academic standpoint, I think I could be convinced
that an integrated approach might make sense," said
Robert Avossa, the superintendent of the Fulton County school
district, near Atlanta. He added, however, that teachers have not
been adequately prepared to make the transition. "The state did
very little work with teacher colleges, purchasing of materials,
and quite frankly, training and preparing teachers to work on this
model," he said.
The state board may soon consider reinstating the traditional
course sequence or give districts the option to choose, said Matt
Cardoza, a spokesman for the Georgia education department.
Educators in other states express similar frustrations.
"It's moving fast, teachers are kind of struggling to get their
hands around it," said Joanne Whitley, a high school math specialist
for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district in North Carolina. "It's
more difficult than I thought it would be."
"There has been a learning curve for teachers. In many cases, we
had teachers who have taught geometry for let's say, 10 years, at a
certain set of standards, and they're used to those," said Jennifer
Curtis, the section chief of K-12 mathematics at the North Carolina
education department.
Deborah A. Crocker, the president of the North Carolina Council
of Teachers of Mathematics, said that teachers in the state are
responding well to the professional development they've received
in integrated math, but that financially strapped districts may be
unable to provide sufficient training.
"I think the problem is whether we can provide enough professional
development," she said. "We've had such tough budget times [the past]
seven or eight years, it's definitely an issue across the state."
Resource Questions
One of the biggest complaints from teachers and administrators
transitioning to integrated math is the lack of accompanying curricular
resources available, particularly ones that align with the common
standards. Since the majority of schools teach a traditional sequence,
publishers have tended to cater to that market.
"What we get to choose from would be so different if we were traditional,"
said Derek Elison, a secondary-math specialist at the Alpine
school district in American Fork, Utah.
To fill the curriculum void in integrated math, educators in Utah
launched an online, open-source resource called Mathematics Vision
Project. Other educators have patched together instuctional resources
from a variety of sources, including online venues.
Some schools have even decided to write their own textbooks. Mr.
Logiudice, the math-department chairman in Townsend, Mass., said
his school began the transition to an integrated-math curriculum in
2011, but his team was underwhelmed with the resources available.
So the teachers crafted their own curriculum from online materials.
"I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a textbook service that
didn't want to do what we wanted to do," he said.
Testing has been another concern for schools with integratedmath
programs. Several states, including Maryland and New Jersey,
allow districts to choose which high school math pathway to
offer but currently support only state assessments designed to reflect
the traditional sequence.
As for the multistate consortia assessments, Nicole Siegel, a
spokesperson for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium,
said that, while the group does not have a specific exam in integrated
math, the grade 11 assessment is designed to work for students
on either an integrated or traditional pathway. The Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers does have
specific assessments for integrated-math levels 1, 2, and 3, but states
have to grant districts the option to use them. Spokesman David
Connerty-Marin said demand for the exams has been low so far.
Despite such challenges and uncertainties, some educators say
they see the integrated-math pathway as a development whose
time has come in U.S. schools.
"It is challenging to completely change your curriculum, but this
was the right thing to do because it's about student learning-it's
about students really understanding math, not just getting the
problem right," said Ms. Ziccardi, the assistant superintendent in
Downers Grove. "This is a much different level, more of a conceptual
level." n
Research Librarian Holly Peele contributed to this article.
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Education Week - November 12, 2014 - Special Report

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