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February 22, 2012

Blogs / Education Matters / July-August 2011 / No more math acceleration?

Sep 2, 201108:50 AMEducation Matters

No more math acceleration?

Will the new math standards of Montgomery County Public Schools’ upgraded elementary school curriculum eliminate the need for skipping grade levels to challenge students?

That’s right, says veteran Principal Barbara Leister of Wyngate Elementary School in Bethesda.

In a letter home to parents about MCPS Curriculum 2.0, Leister explains that the new math standards are so rigorous that “the previous practice of grade skipping acceleration in mathematics will not be necessary for most students. Almost all of our students will be working at the challenging grade level standards this year and not in the next grade level up.”

Parents and teachers have long complained that accelerating math students by skipping grade levels has led to gaps in basic skills and mastery of concepts that haunt them when they reach higher level math.

With the new curriculum, teachers “will quit racing through it,” says Leister, who notes that not every student grasps a math concept at the same time.

That’s because the new standards have been revised to cover fewer math topics—and to teach them more in-depth to make sure that students achieve mastery. Also, math concepts previously taught in second grade or that weren’t part of the MCPS curriculum will now be taught in first grade, further increasing rigor.

Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean that children who are truly gifted in math won’t be challenged. The curriculum includes enrichment and accelerated material that goes beyond the new requirements. That means that “students who consistently demonstrate proficiency of a mathematics concept will be able to enrich their understanding of a grade-level topic or accelerate to a higher-level topic,” Leister wrote.

Schools are implementing the new curriculum in kindergarten and first grade. They have the option of implementing it in second grade this year or next. Implementation in grades three, four and five will follow in upcoming years.

The upgraded curriculum is based on the Common Core Standards – rigorous standards in math, reading and writing that have been adopted by Maryland, Washington, D.C., and 43 other states.

Promoting the development of creative thinking, the new curriculum provides more instruction in the arts, science and social studies, information literacy and physical education – areas that have been neglected as schools pursued federal accountability mandates, such as those created by No Child Left Behind. In “a twenty-first century twist on an old idea,” the curriculum promotes integration between subjects, such as using music to help teach math, MCPS says.

Many parents will applaud the additional focus on science and social studies, subjects that have been sorely miss in the early elementary years as schools have focused on improving math and reading skills.

But how much change students see will depends on the school. Leister says Wyngate never stopped focusing on developing the whole child, even while putting greater emphasis on math and reading.
“For our school, I don’t see it as great,” she says. “Rigor and standards, we’ve always had that. We’re not going to lose that.”