¿ Curriculum change started but few taking notice
By Sarah Koenig
Enterprise reporter
The Edmonds School District has made no secret of its plans to change its math curriculum, but not all parents know the process has started ¿ and that they can get involved.
The district is choosing new math books and materials for elementary and high school students for use next fall.
Todd Keeling is a parent at Brier Terrace Middle School and the Madrona School who serves on the Student Learning Advisory Committee that’s helping choose the new materials. Many parents he knows are interested in math at school but aren’t aware of the changes, he said.
There are many ways parents can participate, said Tony Byrd, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for the district.
The goal of buying new math curricula is to ensure that math is taught in a more balanced way, he said.
“It’s a concern that’s come up with teachers and parents that kids don’t have the foundational skills needed in math,” said Byrd.
In constructivist math, which is what the current district textbooks are based on, students are given a problem, find their way to an answer and are told there is more than one way to solve it. Direct instruction can happen after that.
In traditional math, teachers tell students how to solve a problem and students practice solving, it, a method called “drill.”
“A question over time (has been): Does a constructivist approach do enough with foundational skills?” Byrd said.
The district is looking at four new curricula for elementary schools: Growing with Math, Everyday Math, Bridges, and a new version of Investigations, also known as TERC.
All are constructivist-based but offer more drill and direct instruction than the current version of TERC the district now uses, Byrd said.
Everyday Math and Bridges are “spiraling” curriculums, which return to skills students learned in the past. TERC has a “modular” program made of self-contained books and while it might return to previous material, doesn’t do so as tightly as Everyday Math and Bridges, Byrd said.
In the next few weeks, the Elementary Math Team will narrow the field to two curricula. That team includes a teacher and principal from every school.
The chosen two will be piloted in classrooms between January and March, during which time the Student Learning Advisory Committee will give input. The committee is made up of parents, district staff, principals and teachers. Parents and students are sought to join the group.
Two other groups will give input: the Citizens Planning Committee and the Math Advisory Committee.
In the meantime, the state is revising its math standards. It’s expected to upgrade its standards, possibly in January, and to choose three math curricula in May for recommended use statewide.
“We want ours to match, so we want to pay close attention to what the state is recommending,” Byrd said.
The district aims to take a final recommendation on a new elementary math curriculum to the Edmonds School Board in June. The goal is to start school in fall 2008 with the new books.
As for changes to math at high schools, the district is now creating criteria it will use to review new math materials.
The goal is to choose four to five curricula next month, then narrow the field to two in January, pilot them in classrooms and take them to the Student Learning Advisory Committee in spring.
If things go smoothly, the board could vote on the materials in June or July and buy them for fall 2008.
Choosing new math materials is part of a larger math initiative that will cost the district’s general fund about $1.3 million this year. It includes teacher training in math, more diagnostic tests, communication with parents and more.
In spring 2007, only 53.5 percent of district 10th-graders passed the math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL. The state average is 50.2 percent.
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