Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/ EdSource Today

Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/ EdSource Today

Jay Harlow
October 27, 2015

This fall ninth-grade students in virtually all California high schools are taking math classes aligned with the Mutual Core standards. Simply for many of them there is an additional twist: they are embarking on a sequence of courses that represents a significant difference from how high school math has traditionally been taught in California and the nation.

Every district has had to decide whether to stick with a "traditional" sequence of courses in grades 9-11 (Algebra 1, followed past geometry, and so Algebra 2, with some probability and statistics in each course) or adopt a new "integrated pathway" that combines and re-orders content from those courses in a three-year sequence.

That sequence is typically simply chosen Math I, Math Ii and Math 3. Each course includes algebra, geometry, probability and statistics that are "integrated" with each other.

Regardless of which one they cover, many teachers, schools and districts have been scrambling to observe appropriate textbooks and supplemental materials, develop lesson plans, and provide professional person development to teachers aligned with the new standards.

The state does not continue track of which arroyo districts are adopting. But an EdSource review of the state's 30 districts with the largest loftier school enrollments shows that the traditional approach – Algebra 1, geometry, Algebra 2 – is still used in 15 of them. The remaining 15 have embraced the integrated Math I, Ii and Iii pathway.

(See end of this commodity for a list of which arroyo the surveyed districts adopted.)

Of the 6 public school districts and the Aspire lease school network EdSource has been closely tracking as they implement the Common Cadre, four districts (San Jose Unified, Fresno Unified, Santa Ana Unified and Garden Grove Unified) and Aspire have opted to go on teaching using the traditional pathway. The remaining two (Elk Grove Unified and Visalia Unified) are committed to the integrated pathway.

Which sequence a district adopts has implications for both students and teachers.

Proponents of the integrated pathway debate that it is academically more than effective, and in line with how secondary math is taught in Nippon, Singapore and other countries where students are performing at a college level than in the U.Due south. Every bit Phil Daro, ane of the architects of the Common Core math standards, pointed out, "Math educational activity in Japan and other Asian countries is and ever has been integrated. The U.S. has an integrated approach through 8th grade; it's just in high school that it has been split up autonomously."

"It makes a lot more sense for students to learn some algebra this year and some adjacent twelvemonth, than to say, 'Stop, do geometry and and then become back to algebra,'" David Foster, executive director of the Silicon Valley Math Initiative, told EdSource final year.

Arguments for sticking with the traditional pathway include a lack of new instructional materials to implement the integrated pathway and a feeling that the existing course sequence works. That is especially the case in districts where most high school graduates have made it to college anyway, and there is a less compelling reason to reshape the school curriculum.

Schools using the traditional arroyo likewise are more than likely to be able to apply textbooks they used previously and supplement them with additional Mutual Core-aligned materials.

The creators of the Common Core did not endorse either approach. Los Angeles Unified, by far the state's largest district, has decided to stick with the traditional approach for now. Philip Ogbuehi, the commune'south secondary math coordinator, argued that the traditional sequence "also contains statistics, geometry and algebra concepts that are in some ways integrated."

In addition, he said that switching to an integrated sequence would have placed significant financial demands on the commune. "We would take to retrain all the algebra and geometry teachers and modify the resources that are already in place for the traditional sequence," he said.

Simply sticking with the traditional pathway still presents challenges, equally San Jose Unified has found. In detail, teachers accept to contain the Mutual Core standards into courses they may have been didactics for years. During the transition phase, they accept been able to apply existing textbooks, and have "found or made upward" additional materials to supplement them, according to Jackie Zeller, director of secondary curriculum, instruction and English learner services.

The district eventually adopted the SpringBoard curriculum, an online and impress curriculum developed past the College Lath for this fall. To go set, all math teachers received two days of training in the new curriculum this summer. "Most teachers like the new standards, only it has been a lot of work," she said.

Kern High Schoolhouse Commune in Bakersfield also has had to conform its traditional class sequence to be aligned with the Common Core math standards. The district's director of instructional services, Mark Balch, described the transition as a "multi-year process," beginning with the district's adoption of the Kendall Hunt Discovery series textbooks in 2014-15 and establishing task forces of 12 to 20 teachers who take met each of the last ii summers to plan curriculum units. As a follow-up, each quarter during the school year teachers come up to the district's primal office for sessions to model new approaches to instruction.

Some districts are in a transitional phase as they move to an integrated approach. Elk Grove Unified implemented Math ane in the ninth grade final year every bit a airplane pilot program. This fall it made Math ane the standard 9th-form course, with Math 2 and III first adjacent year for 10th- and 11th-graders.

Every bit in most districts moving to an integrated sequence, students in 10th course and higher who already have taken Algebra i or other courses in the traditional sequence will continue on that pathway, which will exist phased out every bit they complete it. The incoming 9th-graders will have the integrated sequence throughout their high school career.

To help prepare teachers for the new approach, the district offered three-solar day workshops called "institutes" for teachers last summer that included training by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publishers of the Integrated Mathematics serial that Elk Grove will be using.

Over the summer the vast majority of the district's math teachers participated in the workshops, giving them fourth dimension to report how the new standards align with the existing standards. But for those who missed out on the summer training, during the coming schoolhouse year the district is belongings 15 subsequently-school workshops, which are available to all math teachers in the district. Topics will include geometry for middle and high school, using technology in the classroom, geometric proofs, and linear regression.

San Diego Unified launched the first two courses of its integrated sequence in all its loftier schools last autumn. It also offered all its loftier schoolhouse math teachers 10 days of release time during the school year to help them make the change, including giving them opportunities to interact with other teachers. For the new grade sequence, the commune has adopted the Pearson Integrated Math I, Ii and Three texts, but "teachers are encouraged to seek out materials to supplement the texts," said Jim Solo, the district's executive director of leadership and learning.

Lack of textbook materials this twelvemonth is ane reason Santa Ana Unified is staying with the traditional pathway for now. "We found too many problems with the integrated pathway," said Rick Winchester, the district's executive managing director of secondary education.

The district reviewed available textbooks in 2022 but "didn't find any that met our standards. We have rewritten our curriculum maps to encounter the Mutual Core math standards, and volition go along using Holt textbooks that the district had previously adopted. We wrote a lot of our ain curriculum units in other areas (where existing texts were not sufficient)."

Integrated versus traditional "is a conversation we'll continue to have," Winchester said. Either approach "can be taught effectively, or information technology tin be taught ineffectively. We won't make the shift until we are comfy that all of our teachers are prepared."

Jay Harlow is a freelance writer who is currently a special education teacher at Berkeley High School, specializing in remedial math. Erin Brownfield, Susan Frey and Matt Levin conducted research and reporting for this report.

To get more than reports like this 1, click here to sign up for EdSource'south no-cost daily email on latest developments in instruction.