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Texans on education
As parents
and educators
question whether
the rigor of the
new curriculum is
developmentally
appropriate,
school ofcials
are reporting
that they lack the
resources to help
teachers learn
the new material.
by Morgan Smith, Texas Tribune Reporter
Alison Howell was shocked when she noticed that
her third-grade daughter was failing math after just
six weeks of class.
"I really was thinking, well, this isn't right. If a
child who isn't having a behavioral problem, and
who is listening, and we know is doing her best and
successful in other subject areas, she shouldn't be
failing," said Howell, whose daughter attends school
in the Nederland Independent School District in
Southeast Texas.
Howell soon learned that her daughter was
not alone in her struggles. Her daughter's
teacher explained that a new, more rigorous math
curriculum was now in Texas elementary and
middle schools. Students were now required to
learn some concepts as many as two years sooner.
Instead of memorizing multiplication tables in
fourth grade, students do it in third. Lessons on
fractions previously taught in fourth grade have
moved to third grade. Learning to use a protractor
to measure and draw an angle now happens in
fourth grade instead of sixth.
State education offcials adopted the revised
standards in April 2012 after a regular review of
curriculum showed a need to better prepare students
for high school and college, said Monica Martinez, an
associate commissioner at the Texas Education Agency.
Among the new requirements, which were developed
over a two-year period, are teaching advanced concepts
intended to promote the mathematical reasoning
students need for higher education.
"There was a feeling that in order for students to
be competitive and successful, we really needed to
ratchet up the rigor of those standards and ensure
we were holding students to at least the level of
expectation in other states and other countries,"
Martinez said at a November State Board of
Education hearing.
Three months into the school year, the transition
has proved challenging. As parents and educators
question whether the rigor of the new curriculum
is developmentally appropriate, school offcials
are reporting that they lack the resources to help
teachers learn the new material.
Because of the transition to the new curriculum,
ffth- and eighth-grade students will not be held
back if they fail their state math exams this year, the
state education commissioner, Michael Williams,
announced in August. But some educators have
called for the state to do more to ease concerns
in the classroom, including the removal of
student performance on math exams from school
accountability ratings.
"The pace and the concepts are too much. We
have children in classrooms who are stressed trying
to understand concepts they are not ready for,"
Andrea Gonzales, an elementary school principal in
Wimberley, said at the November meeting.
Other school offcials said they had struggled to
train teachers in the curriculum before the school
year began.
"I don't think anyone ever dreamed that we had
teachers at the elementary level or middle school
level who can't teach the higher-level math. Then
school districts are having to scramble to fnd ways
to teach the teachers," said Michael Seabolt, the
superintendent of Louise, a small district about 90
minutes south of Houston.
He has begun circulating a resolution to school
boards, drawing attention to the challenges
presented by the new standards.
Some larger districts, including Alief in Harris
County, were able to better prepare for the
transition. Before the state had even adopted the
new standards, Alief began changing its curriculum,
said Earl Snyder, the district's elementary school
math coordinator.
Synder said he supported the new math
standards, but that school districts needed more
time to put them in place.
"Our kids can do it," he said. "We just need
a timeline that's reasonable to bring it into the
classroom."
New Math Standards a Hurdle for Some
Students and Teachers
This article was originally published by The Texas Tribune and appears here unedited.
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