To raise NAEP math scores, raise math skills in teachers
According to The Nation’s Report Card, Georgia still earns about a C in math. While our 8th grade math scores rose slightly on the 2009 NAEP test, we still trail the national average. Our score was 278, the national was 282.
Here’s the troubling part: NAEP ranks kids basic, proficient or advanced. More than two-thirds of our 8th graders scored at basic. Only 5 percent scored at advanced.
(Please note that you will get a much sunnier view of these scores by reading the entry below, which contains the full release from the state DOE and Kathy Cox. DOE rightfully says we are progressing, but I am still concerned about how many of our students are stuck at basic.)
Admittedly, NAEP sets its standards far higher than most states set the bar in their own tests. (A few New England states have aligned their tests with NAEP, and, not surprisingly, those states do well on every math measure.)
Our fourth grade scores stayed the same since NAEP was administered in 2007, a flattening trend that was reflected nationwide.
So, why is NAEP important?
NAEP is the only nationally representative continuing assessment of student performance in the United States. Begun in 1960, the test informs the public about what American students know and can do in various subjects.
The benchmarking tests were administered earlier this year to a sampling of 170,000 fourth graders and 160,00o eighth graders in reading, math and science.
Today, NAEP released the math scores. (The other scores will be released early next year.)
Here’s what the math scores tell us: Students do better when their teachers really know math.
And not enough of them do.
Speaking at the presentation of the math scores was David P. Driscoll, former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education.
After realizing that elementary teachers could get certified in his state without answering a single math question right on on the general content test, Driscoll imposed a beefed-up math exam and gave teachers two years to get ready for it.
Still, this fall 55 percent of the teachers failed.
“Classroom teachers in elementary school are crucial to math instruction in many ways,” he said. “They provide the building blocks of computative and conceptual skills and the reasoning and number sense that students must master before facing more difficult content.”
NAEP bears out the link between teacher proficiency in math and student proficiency. Eighth graders with teachers who majored in math scored nine points higher than peers with teachers who did not major in math. And kids exposed to algebra earlier did better as well
“We are clearly not requiring enough of our math teachers and we are not equipping them as we should,” said Driscoll.
But are there enough math majors to teach in the nation’s middle schools?
“If you just look at math majors, you are going to have trouble finding them. But all the teachers who come into the field ought to be stronger in mathematics. I don’t think they have to be at the math major level,” Driscoll said, “but they have to have the content. This practice in many schools of people not really trained in math ending up teaching math has to end. ‘
Also on hand for the release of the scores was Kathi M. King, 12th grade mathematics teacher and chair, mathematics department, Oakland, Maine
“For some reason, we have this idea that you graduate college and become a teacher and then you don’t have to learn any more math,” said King. “If you are a teacher for 30 years, imagine if you learned a little math each year. You would be amazing. Perhaps we should instill a new attitude that you start teaching and then are also a learner, and you keep learning math for 30 years.”
As a parent, I am delighted when an elementary school teacher announces at class night that she/he loves math and plans to emphasize it.
Do you think teachers get enough math in their training and is this changing? Take a look at the NAEP site. There is lots of great detail and NAEP has made it easy to compare. (The link is in the first graph of this entry.)
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32 comments Add your comment
Mike D
October 14th, 2009
12:42 pm
We be numba fotey sicks.
KennesawMa
October 14th, 2009
12:42 pm
I don’t think that teacher training is the issue. I think it is the curriculum being distributed to the school. My child is in 3rd grade and instead of learning basic math facts, they now want to teach all of this math theory that is just plane confusing to most kids and parents. Recently, my child brought home multiplication homework and it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to do it and I am a college-educated person who deals with math all day long. The kids have been working on multiplication for a few weeks, but there doesn’t appear to be logic to it. For example, we learned our 1x, 2x, 3x, etc…their homework is all over the board. On the 3rd day of multiplication, she had homework where she had to figure out 8×8. Sorry, but I just don’t get it. Math is a like a puzzle and can be really fun, yet the schools want to overcomplicate it. I would love to see a similar study on reading and spelling abilities. My child was taught to read using sight words instead of phonics. At a recent school meeting, the staff announced that those kids who have learned to read by sight words are now horrific spellers in middle school. They are totally unable to figure out spelling patterns that should have been taught in early elementary school. The school got a new spelling program to teach the kids and were given 5 days to learn it. What is up with that?! Also, Cobb 3rd grade teachers had to adopt the 1,2,3 grading system without any time for discussion or implementation. The teachers aren’t failing, I place the blame squarely at DOE’s feet.
Ernest
October 14th, 2009
1:28 pm
I found this statement most interesting:
NAEP bears out the link between teacher proficiency in math and student proficiency. Eighth graders with teachers who majored in math scored nine points higher than peers with teachers who did not major in math.
This tells me that some of the analysis being done so that we can drill down to areas that need additional remediation may be working. As citizens we don’t know whether our children’s teachers have enough content knowledge. It goes back to the old say, “What gets measure, gets improved”. This type of analysis will enable school districts to better evaluate teacher exams, teachers, the schools teachers attend, and the curriculum, among things.
This can get interesting…..
Pulbic School Parent
October 14th, 2009
2:16 pm
Maureen, thank you so much for linking to the NEAP website. I knew that the Cox press release was way too much spin. I am glad that GA did not slip any further but it is not a rosy picture. I think it is very interesting that the student group in Georgia that made the improvement in 8th grade are female students. Go Girls!
However, these scores beg the question many of us have asked over and over. Why did GA DOE spend millions and millions to write its own math curriculum (especially middle and high school) instead of just investigating what Massachusetts is doing and copy them? I don’t see how Cox can claim that the new curriculum is the basis for the scores when none of the other states with increased scores are using the same curriculum.
And Yes, yes, yes- teachers need more mathematics education before and during their teaching careers.
Pulbic School Parent
October 14th, 2009
2:17 pm
oops that should be NAEP.
DigALittleDeeper
October 14th, 2009
2:40 pm
Teachers also need to learn there is more than one way to skin a cat or in this case teach math. I had a teacher in highschool that would only take math, as correct, if done the way she did it. Thank God, my highschool principal use to be a math teacher.
I also faced the same challenges with my daughters teachers in middle school. She started highschool this year, so far she has a teacher that can use more than one method to solve a problem.
jim d
October 14th, 2009
2:42 pm
To raise NAEP math scores simply test fewer ESOL students.
high exclusion rates, or large swings in those rates, may influence the accuracy of NAEP results
jim d
October 14th, 2009
2:44 pm
are we now filtering the term ESOL?
jim d
October 14th, 2009
2:48 pm
lets give it another shot.
to raise scores test fewer ESOL students.
see how easy it would be to scew these numbers
recruit1
October 14th, 2009
3:02 pm
Interesting that when there is a blog related to GA football, hundreds of people share their thoughts…..toss out a story related to education/instruction and you see two relevant comments….now that sends a message, doesn’t it??
Cobb County
October 14th, 2009
3:32 pm
I agree somewhat with KennesawMa, but teachers should also be held accountable. Last year we had an excellent teacher. She shut the door and taught math, not theory and the kids thrived. This year, because my son can’t write how he got his answers in grammatically correct sentences he receives partial credit and placement in a lower math group. He is the only child in the class that understands regrouping (teacher comment) yet she doesn’t feel he truly understands until he can write about it.
Don’t even get me started on the 1,2,3 – Friday, last day of the reporting period was the first time I received any graded work. It was the first time I saw any spelling and he received a 2. Now had anyone sent home any spelling graded or not, I would have known he needed work in that area. Bottom line, they don’t want the children to be strong across the board. They are more interested in holding back kids so the others will catch up.
Put vouchers on the list of things to vote for. I’ll vote yes and remove my kids from public school forever.
Ernest
October 14th, 2009
3:43 pm
Another interesting statement:
A few New England states have aligned their tests with NAEP, and, not surprisingly, those states do well on every math measure.
As PSP suggested above, it does make one wonder why GA would invest so much in a test when they could have copied the curriculum from another successful state then redirected the savings into Professional Development for teachers.
lovelyliz
October 14th, 2009
4:25 pm
My niece attend a Christian school. I went to her 6th grade open house acouple of years ago with my sister and omy jaw dropped when the teacher who would teach my niece amth said and I quote “I DON’T LIKE MATH”. As an ex-math teacher, I know that it’s not the coolest and hippest subject, but you would think that a teacher would know better than to say so in front of students and their parents.
Tony
October 14th, 2009
4:27 pm
NAEP scores that show improvement are significant for our state. What we must be careful about is drawing too many conclusions from the rise. The report about teachers needing to know more about mathematics is important, because the past practices of teacher certification did not require much advanced math in college in order to receive a degree. That has changed, but one can still be a middle school math teacher without having a degree in math.
It is important to review the rubric standards for the ratings on the NAEP. Basic and Proficient ratings have huge differences of expectations. The Proficient rating goes much further than most people understand when the word proficient is used. The word Basic implies a much lower standard than is described by the rubric. Use the link that Maureen provided to find out more about the meanings of the ratings.
To improve teachers’ understanding of mathematics, we need to spend more money for professional learning. It can be effective when it is done right and when teachers are allowed to plan the activities. Unfortunately, we have too many school systems who think they know best what teachers need and they leave them out of the planning.
If we are seeing improvement, we do need to stick with our current plan. I hope that our teachers and leaders have the fortitude to do that.
lovelyliz
October 14th, 2009
4:42 pm
Sorry about my fat fingering.
My niece attends a Christian school. I went to her 6th grade open house a couple of years ago with my sister and my jaw dropped when the teacher who would teach my niece math said and I quote “I DON’T LIKE MATH”. As an ex-math teacher, I know that it’s not the coolest and hippest subject, but you would think that a teacher would know better than to say so in front of students and their parents.
TW
October 14th, 2009
5:03 pm
My kid’s elementary school teacher in East Cobb is a math wiz. She puts all these innovative math games on her website. The kids love it and their scores are awesome.
Go Raiders!
SouthGaDawg
October 14th, 2009
5:14 pm
How about “to raise NAEP math scores, raise math skills in parents.”
Oh wait…that would actually hold the parents accountable. Its hard for a kid to learn something when mom didn’t graduate highschool because she was pregnant at 14, and when dad is no where to be seen.
Lets blame it on the teachers. They’re the reason for such low scores! Not the mouth-breather parents.
ScienceTeacher671
October 14th, 2009
6:29 pm
I don’t know how it is now but back in the dark ages when I was in college, some of the elementary ed majors struggled mightily with elementary math. Years ago, I knew at least one math teacher who couldn’t work the problems she was supposed to be teaching her students to solve. Of course, her students at that time are probably the parents of today’s students…
NumbNutz
October 14th, 2009
6:36 pm
It has nothing to do with teacher training, and everything to do with our system being based on teaching the children how to take a damned standardized test. Until the focus is on education rather than testing, we’ll continue to see our state educational system’s abysmal performance.
fromatl1
October 14th, 2009
6:48 pm
You go NumbNutz, that’s exactly on target! Stop testing and start teaching!!
ScienceTeacher671
October 14th, 2009
7:30 pm
If we’re TEACHING, shouldn’t the kids who are learning be able to pass the test?
(Especially in Georgia where you only have to get about 45% of the questions correct to “pass”…)
Attentive Parent
October 14th, 2009
7:58 pm
NAEP doesn’t test all kids in 4th and 8th grades so there’s selection going on with the representative students.
When my son was in 8th grade he was asked to take the NAEP with several other students. When he went to the designated classroom he found that all had been identified the previous year as Duke TIP finalists and 7th grade Algebra kids. Not random in the least. With so much riding on the GPS, it seems likely this year;s math NAEP was even more intentional in its designated takers.
ScienceTeacher671
October 14th, 2009
9:18 pm
Attentive Parent, another good reason to find out if there is historical data on the performance of Georgia 8th graders on the ITBS.
Vicki
October 14th, 2009
11:01 pm
We need to slow down when it comes to math. Slow and steady wins the race, but we want to push our children through from one math class to another. We, as parents, want to be able to say our child is in the “advanced” class, but that is only a label, it does not mean that they are comprehending math beyond test day.
My daughter was always being put into “advanced” classes, and that made me feel great as a parent. Until one day, when I noticed that no tests were coming home, no homework was coming home, and surprisingly, the Algebra classs she was taking in the 7th grade had no textbook. I began testing her at home, only to find out she did not understand the basic concepts of algebra; she did not even know the “order of operations”. Her teacher was giving her good grades on her report card, but she was not earning them.
I researched and found that the countries that score higher than the United States in math are those countries that use constant review and practice of the basic concepts. Those basic concepts become second nature with the students, and math success follows.
Middle School maniac
October 15th, 2009
6:56 am
Much of the GPS math curriculum comes from the NCTM standards and much of the reforms that Cox has put in place have been copied almost directly from Massachusetts. As a middle school administrator, I have had to work really hard over the past 5 years to get 9 solid math teachers who know math, know multiple representations of solving problems, and who get standards based instruction requires students thinking, problem solving, AND having skills like basic number sense, multiplication, and division. I would also encourage all parents to ask more questions of their teachers, don’t wait for them to contact you. Ask to see what they are teaching and how they are teaching. Visit school and watch the math instruction.
The more, the better?
October 15th, 2009
8:12 am
Maureen asks if teachers are getting enough math. For elementary teachers in college, they are required to take a general education math course, a math survey course for prospective elementary teachers, and 3 3000-level courses that each GA institution designs for that particular population. That is 15 semester hours all together – more than most other states in the US. For HS teachers, they are basically math majors in terms of the number of math courses they have to take. However, they do take some math courses that math majors don’t – like Geometry.
The issue, however, isn’t really how much math they know, but how well do they understand mathematics they are expected to teach. If your MS teachers’ knowledge of fraction division is simply “just flip and multiply,” then you are in trouble. Unfortunately, too many teachers are at that level, or even below.
I know there are a lot of defenders of teachers here, but teachers’ math knolwedge DO matter. The bottom line is that they are the ones in the rooms with students and what they do with students is what counts. Teachers with good math knolwedge can teach well under any standards and with any textbooks. We just don’t have many such teachers currently, and I have no idea how we can increase that numbers.
TW
October 15th, 2009
9:47 am
The more, the better? – thank you for an excellent post.
Yes, the issue is how can we recruit those knowledgeable mathematicians into the classroom.
In an anti-government, anti-public school environment like this, that is where the rubber hits the road.
Again – great post.
Attentive Parent
October 15th, 2009
9:54 am
Middle School Maniac -
Could you cite your authority on Massachusetts? I appreciate that you were told that but it’s not true. Last year Massachusetts did try to mimic Georgia by putting the more constructivist elements in the Instructional Frameworks while taking credit for the rigors of its Standards. They got caught when the Boston Globe wrote an editorial accusing state officials of attempting to “dumb down” what would actually be transpiring in the classroom.
The NCTM’s standards, with the exception of Focal Points, have been consistently controversial as inadequate for any student wishing to go into STEM careers.
Could we agree though that a rigorous certification test that measures subject matter knowledge like Massachusetts uses would be helpful? Being Knowledgeable about the subject being taught is more than just coursework. It is not sufficient to make an effective teacher, but surely we can all agree that it is necessary.
Reality 2
October 15th, 2009
10:58 am
MS Maniac has it completely wrong. The GPS was influenced by two major sources: Japanese standards and NC standards. They may have looked at the Mass standards, but its influence is minimal. The reference to the NCTM is just lip services.
On the other hand, I don’t think there is any evidence that the NCTM standards is “inadequate for any student wishing to go into STEM careers,” as Attentive Parent claims. S/he should also practice what s/he is preaching to MS Maniac about citing the data to support such a blanket statement.
There is nothing wrong with constructivism, either. If people think constructivism means a particular way of teaching, that simply shows his/her ignorance. Constructivism is a theory of knowledge, and it has little to do with teaching. Too many uneducated educators just jumped on the bandwagon without knowing what they are riding,unfortunately.
Tony
October 15th, 2009
11:38 am
Thank you Reality 2 for clarifying the constructivist issue. And about STEM careers, these make up only a very small portion of the job market. People are being deceived by numbers tricks into thinking that nearly all jobs will soon be science, technology, engineering or math based. These are rapidly growing areas, but the total number of positions remains relatively small. The majority of jobs in the US will be dominated by service jobs: Wal-Mart, food service, cosmetology, …
Yes, teacher knowledge of mathematics makes a huge difference in the classroom. However the factor that has even more impact on student learning is the teacher’s knowledge of how to teach mathematics. Fortunately, Georgia has beefed up its math requirements for elementary ed majors and they must take more math now.
FulCoTeach
October 15th, 2009
7:50 pm
My sister-in-law teaches math education (college level) in Georgia and online and she has observed often that the attitude of many elementary school teachers toward math is VERY problematic. Some will ADMIT that they are majoring in primary grades education because (as mentioned above) they HATE math and feel that they can spend more time teaching reading and writing in the primary grades. I have heard from many high school mathletes that most had, at some point, a teacher who said something like, “It’s time to do fractions. I know you hate fractions and I hate them too, but we have to do them.” Students often adore their primary grades teachers and want to be like them – so they hate fractions (and math) after that. (This is not a blanket statement that all primary grades teachers hate math, just that many do – or are afraid of higher math.)
The point about being able to explain more than one way to approach a problem is also very valid. My son had a teacher with that issue(UNFORTUNATELY for both algebra and geometry in middle school) – how can you tell where a student is stuck if you can only repeat the approach from the teacher’s manual? Of course, we have been so desperate for math teachersm, he knew he wouldn’t lose his job…
As far as the need for math in jobs outside STEM, doesn’t it frustrate you when people can’t give you correct change if they close the drawer and the register doesn’t give them the “answer?” Don’t you want your cosmetologist to understand proportions (both geometrically in cutting your hair and arithmetically when she mixes dyes to color your hair? And, of course, if the recipe calls for a teaspoon and someone puts in a tablespoon, you don’t want to be the one who eats that dish! We really do use math everywhere and we need to break the pattern and teach our young children to love it rather than hate or fear it!
math 88
October 18th, 2009
8:28 am
I exempted two math classes in college with credit, but never sat in a math class. My students scored 14 points above the state average last year in Math on the CRCT. I teach in a Title I school with duct tape holding it together. Saying more training is needed is ludicrous. Set minimum standards on a content test and make teachers pass it. Sitting in class does not guarantee good content.