Professor Serves on National Panel Offering Blueprint for Success in Math

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Sandra Stotsky

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Civics and, in particular, the constitution and democracy, have been special interests of educational researcher Sandra Stotsky for many years. So it should come as no surprise that, when charged with evaluating the state of mathematics education in the United States, Stotsky looked through the lens of democracy.

Stotsky holds the Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Teacher Quality at the University of Arkansas. She joined the department of education reform as a faculty member in the College of Education and Health Professions in August 2007, at which point she had been working for more than a year as a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, created by President Bush in April 2006.

The panel released its recommendations last month at a middle school in Falls Church, Va. Stotsky described the panel’s goal this way: “How to strengthen both the elementary and the middle school mathematics curriculum in all our schools in order to democratize access to Algebra I, the gateway course to advanced mathematics and science in our high schools.”

In her previous position as senior associate commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Education, Stotsky was responsible for strengthening the academic standards for students and prospective teachers. Four years later, Massachusetts’ scores for reading and math in grades 4 and 8 led the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests.

For the past 20 years, Stotsky also has directed summer institutes on civic education to help U.S. history and government teachers learn more about the country’s seminal political documents and principles. In addition to civics education and teacher preparation, she has researched and written about numerous subjects including the teaching of English, history, writing, reading, science and literature.

Stotsky highlighted five features of the report to accomplish the national math panel’s goal of access to what it called an authentic Algebra I course for all students:

• The specific components of Algebra I and Algebra II are spelled out.
• The components of mathematics that all students should master in kindergarten through seventh grade to do well in Algebra I are spelled out.
• What should be included in mathematics coursework for prospective elementary, special education and middle school teachers of mathematics is outlined as well as what they should be tested on for licensure so that they are qualified to teach the foundations for Algebra I or the course itself.
• All school districts are urged to provide an Algebra I course in eighth grade.
• Schools are encouraged to prepare an increasing number of students for success in Algebra I course in eighth grade, if not earlier.

“Basically, we spelled out what students must know in order to be able to do advanced math,” Stotsky said. “We stressed proficiency in such skills as using fractions and decimals so that students don’t have to spend time each year on them. That’s a major reason why textbooks are so huge; the publishers are repeating the same information year after year.

“Math isn’t like science or history in which a basic concept is introduced and then expanded upon in later years. Instead, math requires the learning of a sequence of skills. Students should master the skills they are taught and move on. Teachers should not constantly have to revisit them because the curriculum did not expect proficiency at the time they were first taught.”

Stotsky also emphasized that teachers must be properly prepared to each math.

“We need to look closely at what the state requires of early childhood teachers, middle school teachers and special education teachers,” she said. “Teacher quality will depend to a large extent on what kind of math is stressed in the math courses that these prospective teachers take.”

One idea the panel favored was piloting the use of full-time elementary math teachers, particularly in grades 4-6, as an alternative to expecting all elementary teachers to teach math in self-contained classrooms. The panel advocates focusing the need for expertise on fewer but mathematically well-trained teachers, as is done in many high-achieving countries.

“Having dedicated math teachers on the elementary level, as is now done in middle schools and high schools, would solve the never-ending problem of how to upgrade the elementary teachers’ expertise in teaching math,” she said. “There’s no research on the effect this would have on student achievement so that’s why we recommend pilot programs. It’s a question of scale, too, so that, instead of professional development for 300 teachers in a district, a core of 25 teachers could focus on math.”

Specialized math teachers would be very different from, and much less expensive than, math coaches, who are used routinely around the country, although the panel found no high-quality research evidence to show their effectiveness, Stotsky noted. A math coach generally assists classroom teachers at a school but does not take the sole responsibility of teaching math to students.

The panel’s full report can be read online at http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2008/03/03132008.html.