Students entering the eighth grade this year will be the first class to need to pass three years of math to graduate from Washington’s public high schools, but they’ll get some leeway in how they do it.
The state Board of Education has added one more year of math as a requirement to earn a high school diploma.
For most students, that will mean taking algebra II, which covers more advanced algebra concepts, such as exponential and logarithmic functions.
Some students, after meeting with parents and counselors, will be able to take different kinds of math so long as it is comparable to algebra II.
It will be up to each school district to determine what qualifies as a third math credit and what does not. Increasingly, career and technical education courses, such as accounting, diesel mechanics and electronics, are being fine-tuned to include math that would meet the requirement and help students pass the math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
State officials say the extra math is important to keep Washington from falling behind other states and countries.
“We are only the 40th state to require three years of math credits,” said Edie Harding, executive director for the state education board. “We are not at the head of the pack on this one.”
Math has been a stumbling block for thousands of students across the state. Nearly one third of last year’s seniors did not pass the 10th-grade math WASL despite several attempts. They were required to take math until they passed the state exam or graduated.
Local officials said the new requirement will be challenging for students and schools.
“There are pros and cons,” said Warren Hopkins, deputy superintendent of the Arlington School District.
Hopkins applauds setting higher standards that will help many students achieve more. He also worries about students who have trouble in school.
“For kids who are already struggling, they are going to see this as an even bigger hurdle,” he said.
Another challenge will be having enough math teachers to meet the increased expectations.
“We are going to have to hire more highly qualified math teachers and that’s an issue,” said Mike Olson, assistant superintendent for secondary education in the Stanwood School District.
The new requirement, combined with the updated WASL math expectations, will likely create a need for hundreds more math teachers in Washington, Marysville superintendent Larry Nyland said.
“In Marysville, we’re continuing to have math teachers to hire, but the pool of math teachers available to us is smaller than it has been in the past,” he said. “So as we continue to increase the requirements … that does become a concern. Where do we get math teachers, particularly where do we get math teachers who have had success with students who struggle with math?”
To help students prepare for more math in high school, elementary and middle schools in Marysville also are raising math expectations, Nyland said. For example, more eighth graders are being encouraged to take algebra.
Even before the state board decided to require high schoolers to take three years of math, Marysville schools were planning to make the change to require three years.
“We, as a society, need to step up and show that we value math as much as we do reading,” Nyland said. “It’s pretty well the expectation that everybody needs to be reading and reading well. We need to create that same expectation around math. For some students I think it’s been acceptable not to do well in math. That now has changed big time.”
Adding more advanced math is just one area where expectations could be ratcheted up.
The state Board of Education has endorsed the idea of expanding state graduation requirements to 24 credits, including adding a third year of science.
The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is researching math curricula it deems would be most effective for high schools across the state. It will make its recommendations to the state Board of Education by October. A list of the top three recommended instructional programs should be available to school districts by January.
“It’s basically a menu,” said Nathan Olson, a spokesman for the state superintendent’s office.
Districts will have local control over what math curriculum they use and can adopt what the state recommends or use something different.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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