Tacoma School District Makes New Math Curriculum Recommendations

The Tacoma Public Schools released a new report today on the state of the district's math program, including a recommendation to adopt new curricula at the elementary and middle school level.

In the three years following adoption of Saxon Math, WASL math scores have fallen, undoing some of the gains made during the previous decade.  This past fall, a Mathematics Strategic Planning Committee met and determined six key points that needed to be addressed in order to improve Tacoma's math program:

Inconsistent use of instructional materials (K-8)
Inconsistent time spent learning math (K-5)
Teachers want more opportunities to network with other teachers and math coaches
Teachers want more opportunities to analyze common student work samples
Students need more opportunities to focus on thinking in math and on acquiring basic skills
Current instructional materials are difficult for parents to use to help their children

To address these issues, Deputy Superintendent Carla Santorno, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Rosanne Fulton and the other members of the committee recommend adoption of the McGraw Hill "Math Connects" or Houghton Mifflin "Math Expressions" curricula at the elementary level, (both were recently recommended by the Washington State Board of Education) and Prentice Hall math at the Middle School level.  (Prentice Hall was recently adopted at the high school level, where no further curriculum changes are proposed.) In addition, the committee recommended a series of steps to ease implementation of the new curricula and ensure accountability.  Proposed final adoption date is May 13, 2010.

Read the full report here.

A school board study session will be held tomorrow afternoon at 4:30 pm at the Central Administration Building, to discuss this report and the math curriculum generally.  Public comment on the subject of the math curriculum is welcome.