Cheney tackles elementary math achievement

Math can be a difficult subject, and it's common for students to struggle with it as children and young adults. But according to recent test scores, elementary students in the Cheney School District are grasping grade-level math concepts much better than their older counterparts.

Third-graders in the Cheney district are meeting math benchmarks at a significantly higher rate than older students. About 66 percent of incoming third-graders met required math benchmarks last year, while that number dropped to 40 percent for incoming sixth-graders and 38 percent for incoming ninth-graders.

Laying foundations

Part of the reason for the discrepancy between grade levels can be chalked up to the recently implemented Common Core curriculum.

"One of the big reasons is that big shift in math in Common Core, and younger students being instructed from kindergarten on got that foundation," Cheney data and assessment Coordinator Carol Lewis said. "Sixth-graders and ninth-graders have to get used to the more rigorous assessment."

But school officials say it's not just demanding standards leading to higher scores, but a total shift in how schools are teaching math. Instead of following rote math "recipes," children are learning how to use conceptual problem-solving to reach their answers.

In years past, mathematics curriculums have been geared toward memorization of facts and algorithms, meaning students can mindlessly recite equations without necessarily knowing how or when to implement them.

With the new standards, educators are striving to give students of all ages a better groundwork of knowledge so they have the strategies to succeed in math classes even as the difficulty of the subject matter increases.

"Teachers focus on helping students understand their own thinking and the why behind the mathematics," Cheney School District Superintendent Rob Roettger said. "It is still important to know facts and certain algorithms; however, understanding the why behind the mathematics takes learning to a different level."

This focus on more than memorization means that kids are learning to think critically and creatively about math from a young age.

Statewide trend

According to both local and state data, students tend to improve their language arts skills and scores as they age. The same cannot be said for math.

As students get older, data suggests that they struggle more with math than other subjects, and this phenomenon is not unique to the West Plains.

In 2018, 57.5 percent of third-graders in Washington state met testing requirements, while just 48.2 percent of sixth-graders did. There is no data for ninth-grade math scores on a statewide level from the Student Report Card, but 10th-grade scores dropped to 40.6 percent.

"We see inconsistencies in our program that we want to address," Roettger said. "Fifth and sixth-grade is where you really see the drop, and statewide you see that the difficulty of things kids need to learn ramps up rather quickly."

At the third-grade level, students are expected to be able to use place value to round whole numbers to the nearest 10, be able to add and subtract within 1,000 and multiply one digit numbers by multiples of 10.

Seeing higher achievement in younger and younger students is a sign that the tactics the district has been implementing are working, and hopefully that trend will continue in older students as well, Lewis said.

"We have a little saying here that 'hope is not a strategy,'" Lewis said. "So we're doing everything we can to ensure that this cohort will continue."

Making progress

Right now, the district is going through an elementary math adoption process, updating its math curriculum and deciding what materials will be used during the 2018-2019 school year.

School officials are currently analyzing several different instructional methods and their accompanying literature to determine the best methods for Cheney students.

"The first step isn't the materials, it's what are the foundational principles for qualified math instruction," Lewis said.

Director of Teaching and Learning Annie Wolfley gave a presentation to the school board at their Oct. 24 meeting on the process. A goal will be to make sure that all teachers are using the same methods with their students to make the most of their learning and to avoid confusion.

"We're focused on that math adoption and identifying curriculum to best support teachers," Roettger said. "There are inconsistencies across the district and different teachers may use different methods."

A committee for the elementary math adoption process is working with four different resources at the moment, though it will eventually narrow the choices down to two that all elementary school teachers will field test.

The test will consist of teaching lessons from both resources in the running for one to two weeks each in order to see what's working best for students.

"We really wanted to get everyone on the same page as far as instructional practices," Wolfley said in the meeting.

The district is also being intentional about implementing strategies like "number talks," which is a new creation that older students may not have been exposed to.

Number talks help students understand that there may be several different ways to arrive at a correct answer.

"We're having that conversation about practical math strategies," Roettger said."

The new math curriculum with be piloted this winter in January or February and executed at the start of the next school year.

Shannen Talbot can be reached at [email protected].