Why I Still Believe In The Common Core...

This may be a complete surprise to anyone who has talked to me recently, without getting into details.  Even someone who sees things that I post on Facebook, perhaps from a superficial perspective, will think my use of the word "still" is erroneous.  But I use it intentionally, and correctly; it's time to clear up some misunderstandings.    And, at the onset of this post, I will say that my comments pertain to the math standards specifically.

Several years ago, a SUNY Potsdam colleague and I were discussing the proposed Common Core Standards.  This was before NYS customized the standards a bit, thereafter approving them for implementation statewide.  As we looked into the details of the standards, a certain pride began to emerge from us as we realized this was substantive mathematical content!  This was, indeed, a step in the right direction!  Not only was the content itself rigorous and relevant, but it actually encouraged teachers to adapt teaching styles to accommodate more exploration and more discovery, which is exactly what we had been discussing with our teacher candidates on campus!  We were excited, and our vision began to bloom...

Wait - I'm not sure that was MY vision that was blooming.  I really think that what I was seeing in my mind's eye was that possibly we were heading in the direction of a vision clearly articulated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics well over a decade ago, as I share here:

"Imagine a classroom, a school, or a school district where all students have access to high-quality, engaging mathematics instruction. There are ambitious expectations for all, with accommodation for those who need it. Knowledgeable teachers have adequate resources to support their work and are continually growing as professionals. The curriculum is mathematically rich, offering students opportunities to learn important mathematical concepts and procedures with understanding. Technology is an essential component of the environment. Students confidently engage in complex mathematical tasks chosen carefully by teachers. They draw on knowledge from a wide variety of mathematical topics, sometimes approaching the same problem from different mathematical perspectives or representing the mathematics in different ways until they find methods that enable them to make progress. Teachers help students make, refine, and explore conjectures on the basis of evidence and use a variety of reasoning and proof techniques to confirm or disprove those conjectures. Students are flexible and resourceful problem solvers. Alone or in groups and with access to technology, they work productively and reflectively, with the skilled guidance of their teachers. Orally and in writing, students communicate their ideas and results effectively. They value mathematics and engage actively in learning it."

(Introduction entitled "A Vision for School Mathematics," from "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics," NCTM, 2000.  Entire document can be viewed at standards.nctm.org.)

NCTM admitted that this vision was ambitious, but we acknowledge as a society that, when things are worth doing, they're worth doing right.  Maybe our acknowledgement is more lip service, since we often prioritize with our dollars, and educators' pay just doesn't compare with some other things that we must really value, I guess.  But, I digress...

Back to the daydreams my colleague and I were having.  Though they may not have been identical, I think they were similar, since we agree on a lot of things.  And, I think we both came to another conclusion at the same time, a thought that went something like this for me: "It's going to be ALL ABOUT the implementation!"  And suddenly, I was very worried.  Let me explain.

I began teaching mathematics full-time in the summer of 1988.  I had just graduated from college.  I had a BA in mathematics, an MA in mathematics, and a provisional NYS certification to teach math from grades 7-12.  That summer, just a few weeks out of my college student teaching experience, after having accumulated a few days of substitute teaching, known to some as "trial by fire," I jumped into my first classroom enthusiastically.  I was, after all, going to change the world!  To this day, I love the idealism and vision of young teachers.  Some call it "being naive," but I still see it as energy to be harnessed, energy that I may struggle to find myself on many days.  I was teaching Course I, Course II, and Course III in summer school.  For those unclear about those courses, they had replaced the equally ambiguously named "Ninth," "Tenth," and "Eleventh Grade Mathematics" courses that had preceded them, and they incorporated a new technique of "spiraling" the content.  Whereas the earlier courses had been quite accurately labeled as "Algebra," "Geometry," and "Trigonometry," these courses were more broad in their content scope, while still focusing on those particular areas, being somewhat attentive to theories in math education.

There's no question that either of these sets of courses was able to be taught somewhat mechanically, and I did largely that.  Students were shown procedures, and given similar problems to solve as class samples and for homework.  Then, on quizzes, tests, and the Regents exam, they selected several problems to complete, and the teacher whom they had all year graded the papers, whether locally created or issued by the state.  In this environment, I began to see that not all of my "good students" were "good thinkers," and I made an effort to remedy that my altering the way I did things.  I had one student, Dawn, in my first school, who stayed after class one day to talk to me about something I had said.  That day, I had been asked the ever present question, "When will I EVER use this?"  My response had been lighthearted, but I did make the point that I was trying to help my students learn how to think.  Dawn told me, more seriously than anyone ever had, that she WANTED that - she wanted to learn how to think!  And, for quite some time, Dawn worked harder in my math class than many other students, having glimpsed a vision of the power of mathematics.

So, when I saw Common Core standards in their raw form, I wanted to believe again.  As a college instructor who was working with future math teachers, I wanted to be able to tell them that the state was "getting it right."  But, there was the nagging worry about details of implementation.

Let me flash forward from my early years of teaching.  In 1999, NYS began to give a new exam that was required to graduate from high school.  It was called Math A, and it was our state's first attempt to set "standards" instead of prescribing curriculum.  Standards were supposed to increase flexibility for teachers, since they didn't pave the instructional path.  Instead, they only declared the benchmarks to which students would be held, or at least that was the theory.  They had also decided, with the help of psychometricians - people who turn brain function into quantified data - that it wasn't fair to have everyone taking a different math test.  You see, on the Course I, II, and III exams, as had been the case for decades of previous state tests, students had choice of which questions they completed.  On each part, they were able to omit some questions.  I always thought it was good to know one's strengths and weaknesses.  In fact, I think one of the reasons I'm not currently competing in the Olympics is because I'm aware of the limitations of my current physical state, and the need to do something about it before subjecting myself to that level of public scrutiny!  But, maybe that's just me...  As a result of this perception of inequity in exams that students effectively construct themselves, it was decided that the Math A exam (and the Math B exam as well), would be scaled.  Essentially, scaling is a process of normalization to give a standardized distribution of scores.  One poor choice, in my opinion, was to scale the scores out of 100, meaning that students and parents could easily compare them to percentage scores, which was how previous tests had been graded.  We were told by the state that the scale would begin rather generous, but that "full accountability" was the ultimate goal, so we began to watch.

For the data included here, keep in mind that the previous tests totaled 140 points, from which students had to select 100 points to attempt.  From the 100 points they selected to complete, they had to obtain 65 points to pass.  Some have claimed that students really only had to complete 65 out of 140 points back then, or 46.4%, but it was really a bit more complex than that.  Still, I think we can use a 50% benchmark to roughly make comparisons, and it really was more rigid than that, since students could not get ANY points from omitted problems.

June 1999 - the first Math A test was given.  The entire test was worth 85 points, and the most significant problems were 5 points.  (Previously, students were required to do problems worth up to 10 points, with more substantial content and procedural expectations.)  In order to get a "scaled score" of 65 (passing), a student had to get 43 of 85 points, or 50.6%.  Okay, so in some people's minds that was comparable to the "old system," without considering the choice factor.

Here are some additional statistics:

January 2000 - 44/85 to get 65 (51.8%)
June and August 2000 - 41/85 to get 65 (48.2%)
January and June 2001 - 46/85 to get 65 (54.1%)
August 2001 - 47/85 to get 65 (55.3%)
January 2002 - 48/85 to get 65 (56.5%)
June 2002 - 52/85 to get 65 (61.1%)
August 2002 - 53/85 to get 65 (62.4%)
January 2003 - 52/85 again (61.1%)
June 2003 - 51/85 to get 65 (60% - originally; it was rescaled to require 36 points to pass, or 42.4%, in summer 2003)

In June 2003, there was a statewide crisis, since some two-thirds of the students taking the Math A test failed.  This became tremendous political pressure, and an investigative group was put together to see what went wrong.  Various opinions and perspectives were offered, such as the one found here: http://www.math.nyu.edu/mfdd/braams/links/regents-0306.html.  In my mind, while there were a couple of distinct flaws in the exam, what we saw was a shift in accomplishment coming to its head, since early high school mathematics had been significantly watered down.  I was there, and could make comparisons directly; Math A was not holding a higher "standard" than had previous Regents exams, nor was it implemented well.  There was uncertainty about when it should be given, and initially many schools gave it in January of the 10th grade year.  Its contents were uncertain at the start, and each test seemed to jump around a bit in terms of content it contained.  The June 2003 test was a bit more "geometry-heavy" than had been previous exams, one of the bases for calling it problematic.  I thought, and still do, that we just weren't holding the bar high enough, and students had lowered their level of approach accordingly.

The response to this crisis was dramatic, and as political as it could be - see the NY Times article for details: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/nyregion/this-year-s-math-regents-exam-is-too-difficult-educators-say.html.  (Do you notice a name you might still recognize near the end of the article?) Students were allowed to graduate without the Math A exam, and it was significantly restructured for future use - more multiple choice questions, and the most points any one question was worth was 4, instead of 5.  The existing June 2003 test was also rescaled to improve the state's passing rate, as detailed above.  That's right - students were not asked to retake an exam, they just had their test scores changed over the summer...

What has happened since then?  I mean, we're over a decade out from that debacle!  Surely we've made progress in fixing the problem?  Here are some more statistics, continued through the present, with implementation of new exams in - wait for it - Integrated Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 with Trigonometry.  The more things change...

Math A, continued (the altered exam was worth 84 points):

January and June 2004 - 37/84 to get 65 (44%)
August 2004 - 36/84 to get 65 (42.9%)
January 2005 - 34/84 to get 65 (40.5%)
June 2005 - 36/84 again (42.9%)
August 2005 - 34/84 again (40.5%)
January 2006 - 33/84 to get 65 (39.3%)

The Math A continued to be a "lame duck" exam through January 2009.  In that final administration, a score of 35/84 received a passing scaled score of 65.  It bounced around between 34 and 36 between January 2006 and its conclusion.  Good riddance, right?

The Integrated Algebra exam was first offered in June 2008.  Unfortunately, its structure was similar to Math A, with the most challenging question being worth four points.  And, it can still be passed only by completing multiple choice questions, and not very many of them at that.  Want some stats?

June and August 2008 - 30/87 to get 65 (34.5%)
January 2009 - 31/87 to get 65 (35.6%)
June 2009 - 30/87 again (34.5%)

January 2014 - 30/87 again - this seems to be where the test has "settled in"...in fact, feel free to look at the entire chart here: http://nysedregents.org/IntegratedAlgebra/114/ialg12014-cc.pdf.  You'll get a much better idea of how "scaling" works.  A students first five points are worth 19 points on the "scale," and their final five points are worth 5 points on the "scale."  Are we effectively rewarding poorer performance?

New York State needs better mathematics, and a higher standard of performance expectation.  Teachers all around the world strive to have high expectations for their students, knowing that most will rise to that level.  Similarly, many will lower themselves to a ridiculous standard of "competence" when their system gives them that opportunity...

I believe in the Common Core mathematics content.  I am disappointed by its terribly flawed implementation, and by previous failures that have led us to the low point where we seem to be.  I want to help us work our way upward, but I'm unfortunately hindered by mandates that attempt to quantify everything that we do for purposes of evaluation and scrutiny, under the unrealistic, or even fraudulent, guise of full accountability.  I'm discouraged, but I'll keep doing what I believe is right.  There's too much at stake to do anything else...