Math changes on the way?

Geri Johnson, mother of two at Syre Elementary, is worried about math scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL.

“It makes me nervous,” she said. “As a parent of a third- and a sixth-grader, where will we be when it really counts, in high school?”

Johnson isn’t alone.

“Some parents are concerned about (math) WASL scores — we’re concerned as well,” said Sue Porter, director of teaching and learning for the Shoreline School District.

District officials are having conversations about the future of math in the district, which could mean curriculum changes in the future.

Statewide changes

Statewide, districts have struggled with math. About 65 percent of students at Shorewood High School and 65 percent at Shorecrest High School passed the math section of the WASL in spring 2007. Statewide, about 50 percent of 10th-graders passed.

Partly because of the poor scores, the state is now revising its math standards. It will also recommend specific curricula for all school districts. That could affect the way math is taught in Shoreline.

“Reform” vs. traditional math

One part of the conversation at the state level, and in Shoreline, has centered on a traditional versus “reform” approach to math. In 2000, the district adopted new curriculum that was reform based, a shift from a traditional approach. In the past decade, reform math has become common in schools statewide, as it aligns with state standards and the WASL.

In traditional math, teachers show students how to solve a problem. Then students practice it, a method called “drill.”

In reform math, students are given a problem, asked to find their way to an answer and told there is more than one way to solve it. Direct instruction can happen after that. Students must explain their thinking and grasp the underpinnings of the math concept.

For example, in Paul Shanahan’s sixth-grade class at Echo Lake Elementary Monday, Jan. 14, students were given a diagram of a plot of land. The diagram was divided up with owners’ names on different parcels, and students were asked to put a fraction on each parcel of land.

Students found various ways to the answers, working alone or with other students.

Shanahan doesn’t teach the math drills he had in school — the “here’s the problem, here’s how you solve it, now practice” drills, he said.

“I don’t give away one way it would work,” he said.

But at the end of a lesson, after students have worked a problem out on their own, he teaches them the algorithm for it, as was done in the past.

Next door, fifth-grade teacher Shari Wennik said her teaching balances the reform method with more traditional direct instruction.

“We get them to understand the why of the problem and then teach the algorithm,” she said.

Finding a balance

The district’s goal in teaching math is to have a balance between the two approaches, Porter said.

When officials adopted new curriculum in 2000, it seemed very balanced, but they will look at it again to make sure that it truly is, she said.

Reform math has come under fire from groups like “Where’s the math?” an organization of parents and educators who have pushed for changes in the state’s standards.

They argue that reform math doesn’t teach enough content, that students find it confusing and that high school graduates can’t do college math. Americans are falling behind in the world and have less qualified graduates, they argue.

When a draft of the state’s revised standards was made available in December, the organization criticized it, saying it didn’t focus enough on traditional algorithms and was still reform-based.

At the local level, parents trying to help their students with their math homework can come away confused.

When Elizabeth Beck taught fourth grade at Syre Elementary, she often had parents say that this wasn’t the way they learned math, and that they couldn’t help their child with homework. Beck is co-president of the Shoreline Education Association.

“How I usually tended to approach it was to talk a little about (how) we want kids to know the basics, but we also want them to be able to solve problems,” she said.

She said it’s key that students understand the underpinning of math concepts so they can apply their reasoning skills to real world problems, and so they can answer math problems even if they forget the algorithm or times tables.

As for the revised state standards, Beck hopes they will clarify and narrow down the many Grade Level Expectations, or GLEs, for math.

“The GLEs were sometimes frustratingly vague,” she said. “Knowing what exactly the kids were supposed to be doing was difficult.”

Looking to the future

As for possible math changes in Shoreline, the first step is to see what the state’s new standards and recommended curricula are, Porter said.

The Legislature is expected to vote on the revised math standards at the end of January. The state aims to recommend curricula to districts this spring.

Once they have this information, Shoreline officials would assemble a group of stakeholders, including parents and others, to determine where the district should go in the future, Porter said.

Hopefully, they can start looking at new curricula next year, she said. Though the state will recommend books to districts this spring, districts are not required to rush out and buy them right away, Porter said.

But finances could limit any changes the district wants to make.

“We’re in the process of trying to come back to a balanced budget,” Porter said.

Math is a priority, but no one knows whether the district will be able to buy new books, which are expensive, she said.