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Panel: Make sweeping changes in math courses Recommends to Regents new structure in tests, curriculum 
November 18, 2004 Bill Brosnan and Terry McSweeney, co-chairs of the Math Standards Committee. A State Education Department panel created to examine math standards has proposed sweeping changes in what math topics are taught and when they are tested, particularly at the middle and secondary levels. In a Nov. 4 report to the state Board of Regents, the Math Standards Committee outlined 13 recommendations, including:
Working since January, the 24-member panel sifted through 876 state guidelines for what math students should know, from pre-K through high school. "Rewriting the performance indicators and separating them grade by grade was the bulk of the work," said the committee's co-chairwoman, Terry McSweeney, who teaches math in Marcellus schools in Onondaga County. What's next? Regents, who set education policy in New York, will seek public comment on the report into December and take up the plan in January. Among the recommendations from the panel of math teachers and other math professionals, the plan would remove geometry and trigonometry from Math A and create a one-year course called "integrated algebra." Because three years of math are required for a Regents Diploma with advanced designation, and the panel believes all students should take more than Math A, the more advanced Math B would be replaced by two courses: "integrated geometry" followed by "integrated algebra II and trigonometry." Each would have its own Regents Exam. The committee recommended the revised high school program be phased in over three years, beginning one year after the federal government begins testing grades 3-8 students in math under the No Child Left Behind Act. That's tentatively scheduled to begin in the 2005-06 school year. Under the plan, some algebra topics - such as addition and subtraction of polynomials and factoring trinomials - would move from Math A to grade 8. Solving one- and two-step equations would be moved to grades 5 and 6 from the current grades 7 and 8. McSweeney, president of the Marcellus Faculty Association, said the content shifts would make math "more robust" " and challenging the kids. "They're up to it," she told Regents. Calculators Calling technology "a powerful student motivator," the committee endorsed more use of calculators, starting with basic four-function calculators in kindergarten, scientific calculators in grades 5-8 and graphing calculators beginning in grade 7. While the committee stressed that adequate state funding would be needed to assure all students have access, McSweeney said members were surprised to find widespread availability of calculators in cash-strapped New York City and other large cities. "It's an ambitious program that hinges on the state providing a well-thought-out, grade-by-grade common-core curriculum and staff development," said Maria Neira, second vice president of New York State United Teachers. The standards committee called it "essential that grade-by-grade curriculum guides be developed as suggested models for the field." In a recent interview with New York Teacher, Deputy Education Commissioner James Kadamus said SED planned to publish a state core curriculum and provide grade-by-grade models on the department's Web site. Because teachers and schools need time to redesign curriculum and train in revised standards, the committee recommended that SED ask the federal government for a one-year delay in the start of NCLB math tests in grades 3-8. Failing that, the panel suggested, schools should not be held accountable for test results until the 2006-07 school year. NYSUT has been pressing SED to seek approval for a grace period in accountability. Regent Geraldine Chapey of New York City suggested a long delay in accountability, noting that when the board raised academic standards in 1996, "It took professional development three or four years to catch up." Reporting to the Regents later on the NCLB testing program, Kadamus said SED may have found a way to keep schools from being penalized for an expected "dip in performance" when they're hit with new tests and new standards simultaneously. Under NCLB, states set their own measurable goals to ensure that students are proficient in math and English Language Arts by 2012. They then set annual targets to advance toward that goal, and face penalties if they fall short. According to Kadamus, staff at the U.S. Department of Education report the state could seek approval to adjust its own annual standards to offset the expected achievement drop. The report's release came as members of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State were meeting in Westchester County. Seeing the report, many teachers openly worried about classroom chaos - children being tested on material they haven't yet learned and assessments written for standards yet to be approved or even discussed by the Regents. With only a month being provided for comment, "You are being thrown new standards, new curriculum items and new conventions," math association President Grace Wilkie, a member of Hendrick Hudson Education Association, told the Westchester-Rockland Journal News. - John Strachan
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