Yes to Common Core plus 8th grade algebra
Staring at a midnight deadline before going out of business, a state academic standards commission last night endorsed and fortified the national common core standards in English language arts and math, with modifications that will set up students for taking a complete Algebra I course in eighth grade.
Creating the latter avoided a collision with Gov. Schwarzenegger, who appointed a majority of the 21-member California Academic Content Standards Commission and demanded eighth grade algebra as his bottom line. His undersecretary of education, Kathy Gaither, who time and again reinforced that point at commission meetings, indicated she was pleased with the outcome.
The common core standards split algebra between eighth and ninth grades, so California, where 60 percent of students already take Algebra I in seventh or eighth grade, would continue to be out of sync with much of the nation – though in concert with some high-achieving nations in math, like Singapore.
The State Board of Education will have the final say, and will take up the commission’s recommendations Aug. 2. But under rules created by the Legislature, it must either accept or reject the commission’s package intact. If it’s approved, California would join the 25 states that have adopted the common core so far – the first step toward a de facto national curriculum in English and math, fulfilling a 20-year movement to bring uniformity to vastly disparate state standards. Common textbooks and tests will follow.
The common core initiative’s sponsors, the National Governors Assn. and the Council of Chief State School Officers, permit states to add up to 15 percent more standards. California’s commission used that authority liberally, grafting on sections of the state’s generally acclaimed rigorous standards. It added standards for penmanship, formal presentations and oral recitations to the common core English language arts standards, and significant numbers of math standards in algebra and advanced subjects.
Agreement did not come easily. Over the past month, California’s commission labored through intense pressure of tight deadlines, frustrations, fundamental disagreements and even accusations of bad faith. As of Wednesday night, commissioners had gone through only the kindergarten and first grade standards in math, after squandering hours debating how to frame eighth grade math.
That left the contentious issues and bulk of the work for Thursday, the last day.
The breakthrough came when commissioners coalesced in agreement that the primary aim of K-7 standards is to prepare all students for algebra in eighth grade, to put students on a path to take at least three, and for many, four, years of high school math needed to assure their spot at a UC or CSU campus. Pre-algebra would be offered to those who still lack the skills..
Even then, progress was slow and tedious. Commissioners came to resent – and automatically vote down – many motions by Ze’ev Wurman, a software engineer from Palo Alto, and Bill Evers, a researcher at the Hoover Institution, to rewrite common core standards to look like California’s math standards, which they helped write and regard as better. (Though they lost most battles, in a sense they won the war, since they too were the loudest advocates of eighth-grade algebra.)
Their claims that California standards were more rigorous were vigorously disputed by Scott Farrand, a math professor at California State University, Sacramento, and Heather Calahan, lecturer and executive director of a center for mathematics and teaching at UCLA. They and others argued that common core standards were carefully written with a coherent logic that shouldn’t be undermined or tampered with.
The commission ended up adopting both common core eighth grade standards, which include parts of algebra and geometry, and crafting a complete set of algebra standards by combining common core’s eighth and ninth grade algebra standards with all but a few California algebra standards. Together, the 63 standards are enough to craft a pre-algebra and algebra courses – a job others must now do.
The commission also shifted a handful of eighth grade common core standards to seventh grade and seventh grade common core standards to sixth, in order to strengthen preparation for algebra.
Prospect of better preparation
Students currently take a hodgepodge of algebra and pre-algebra courses. Some students repeat sixth and seventh grade math in eighth grade while others take algebra lite. Many others, because of poor preparation, repeat algebra in ninth grade and grow to dislike math. The new system offers the hope of strong pre-algebra standards and a uniform algebra course.
But it has detractors. Both Wurman and Evers voted against the final package. Evers criticized the seventh grade standards as inadequate preparation for algebra and the omission or shift to Algebra II of several key California Algebra 1 standards. Wurman said that the state will end up spending $2 billion in developing curricula and assessments for math standards that are, at best, no better than what we have now.
Patricia Rucker, lobbyist for the California Teachers Association, said the creation of both pre-algebra and an algebra courses in eighth grade raise the specter of once again tracking students minority and low-income students. CTA would oppose the math standards for this reason, she said.
Commissioner Chuck Weis, superintendent of Santa Clara County, acknowledged that it is a concern, but said he would do all he could to prevent that from happening. The goal –and common core may help to achieve it – is to make more students truly ready for algebra.
The commission all but ran out of time to examine high school math subjects beyond Algebra I, but, by extending their meeting from 3 p.m. to near midnight and forgoing dinner, they identified weaknesses in common core’s Algebra II, trigonometry and particularly geometry standards, and, taking Calahan’s and Wurman’s suggestions, bolstered them with the addition of key California standards.
The commission was established by the Legislature in January as part of the state’s effort to compete for Race to the Top money. But after Schwarzenegger delayed his 11 appointments for months, the uncompensated commissioners didn’t convene until last month and scheduled only six days of meetings. Credit all of them for their efforts but especially the two teams of philosophical rivals — Calahan and Forrand, and Wurman and Evers – as well as the staff of the Sacramento County Office of Education, for their detailed analyses and thankless hours of hard work.
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Having observed the deliberations in person, tracking and preparing students for Algebra in 8th grade were the big topics. Evers and Wurman were working to get two 6-8th grade tracks. One track for students going into pre-Algebra in 8th and the other for 8th grade Algebra. Wurman said it wasn’t tracking but “laning”. The final product, while not perfect, is a much better step in the right direction. There is now a viable option at 8th grade for students not prepared to take Algebra. Instead of placing these students in algebra where many of them fail and repeat the course over and over again, they now can be in a course that doesn’t repeat content and prepares them to take algebra the following year.
Wurman and Evers will argue that the percentage of students taking Algebra in 8th grade will dramatically fall but the majority of those students did not pass Algebra because they were not adequately prepared. For the 2008-2009 school year, 54% of 8th grades took the Algebra CST and only 44% were proficient or above. Do we want to be counting students taking Algebra or being successful in Algebra?
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Thank you Scott, Heather, and Gretchen for the amazing job did to craft a compromise on the sticky algebra 1 issue. Millions of CA kids owe you a big thank you for years to come! And teachers will now be able to provide more appropriate curricula so that students LEARN algebra, not just take it.
shelley
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It is essential that the core textbooks be on-line so that parents can review the material with their children. Not having enough textbooks to allow all students to have a textbook that they can take home is a real problem. These on-line textbooks should have open access. [not password protected]
Most of those who do not pass 8th grade algebra are either slow learners or students who do not have access to their own textbook. On-line textbooks with the help of a parent or tutors can often give them the help they need.
Some of those who do not pass 8th grade algebra are students who refuse to study and refuse to do both classwork and homework. Do not deprive them of their option to fail. ‘No child left behind’ should not protect them from failure. They need an incentive to learn Algebra.
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Gretchen, I actually agree with you that having two paths in grades 6-7, or even only in 7, is not an ideal solution. That was, however, what I thought a reasonable compromise given that there was a clear reluctance to supplement Common Core in a significant way for all students, and give we already have 2 or 3 lanes of math in many seven grades around the state. The solution eventually adopted by the commission takes essentially the current California grade 6 curriculum (Common Core grade 7), augments it with 4 pre-algebra standards from Common Core grade 8 (8.NS.1-2, 8.EE.3-4) and one geometry standard (8.G.9) and claims this is a sufficient preparation for a heavy duty 8th grade algebra 1 — essentially all of California current Algebra 1 ON TOP of over dozen existing Common Core grade 8 pre-algebra content standard, 8 geometry standards, and 4 beefy statistics standard. This does not pass the laughing test. Maintaining and growing our 8 grade algebra enrollment *and* success, the official reason for doing this bizarre setup, is bound to drop dramatically. Further, your argument that just increasing Algebra 1 enrollment is insufficient is correct. But in addition to looking at 60% enrollment and 48% success rate (not the 44 you claimed — you omitted the contribution of the 7th graders) you should also look where we were just 7 years ago — less that 30% enrollment, with less than 40% success rate. This translates to over 90 thousand(!) additional kids every year that are successful in algebra by grade 8, and have a much higher probability of finishing college. It is disappointing that you seem to be willing to trade their futures for the equity of having almost everyone be equally unprepared for Algebra 1. This will simply increase the achievement gap, as affluent kids will get the extra support from Kumon or Score to prepare them for the Algebra course, while the poor and minority kid will end up where they always did before 1998 — left behind.
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My question is, are the students who do not take Algebra 1 in 8th grade still subject to the same penalty they suffer now? Currently, they have no approved curriculum, and therefore, no approved textbooks. Also, their scores are lowered by one full standard (to approximately 80% of their earned API), so there is a disincentive to allow students to take anything but Algebra 1 in the 8th grade.
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Russ: “Most of those who do not pass 8th grade algebra are either slow learners or students who do not have access to their own textbook.” Do you happen to be aware of data suggesting this is indeed the case? Thanks.
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I believe the common core plus what the commission added will move more students forward towards successful completion of algebra 1 in 8th grade. The current success rate of 60% enrollment times 44% of those students who score proficient or advanced gives us a better picture of the actual success rate.(about 27%) we can do better than that! Two things to consider. It will take some time to implement and see the results from the core. The State should change API calculation so that only students who have CST scores in the advanced or proficient ranges generate “extra Points” towards API. This would take away the incentive to place students in algebra who are not ready
M Freathy
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So we’re one step closer to participating in the experiment to determine if common standards lead to economies or dis-economies of scale.
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I think Elaine DeMarco asks a good question, even as I object to the loaded language she uses to ask it. Current 8th graders who do not take algebra do not have clear standards to describe the content they should be taught. (Their curriculum in every district is as “approved” or as “unapproved” as in any other grade). It is worth mentioning that California has recognized this deficiency long ago and implemented a full-blown Algebra Readiness program, including millions of dollars invested by publishers to develop textbooks to support it. All this is readily available with textbooks adopted and waiting on the shelf for 3 years, but unfortunately has been frozen since the 2008 debacle with the feds over Algebra in grade 8. California should have petitioned the new administration for a waiver to go forward with Algebra Readiness program already last year – this program could have already been helping kids as we speak rather that waiting for something to happen. Further, my fellow commissioner’s Mark Freathy response to Elaine brings up an excellent point about current incentives for early algebra taking — not that they are unnecessary, but that they are too blunt. At the Standards Commission a resolution was suggested to provide incentives to Algebra 1 taking in grade 8, but ONLY to those students that score basic or above on Algebra 1 CST. The hope was this would put a stop to pushing unprepared kids into Algebra 1. Unfortunately this was lost in the shuffle. It deserves to be reconsidered.
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A correction to my previous post about which Common Core grade 8 standards were ultimately approved to be moved/copied to grade 7: these were 8.NS.1-2, 8.EE.2-3, and 8.G.9 . In my previous post I erroneously wrote 8.EE.3-4 rather than 8.EE.2-3 .
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