Education report classifies N.C.'s math standards as 'weak'

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute rated North Carolina's mathematic's curriculum as "weak" in a recent report published last Wednesday. 

 “The State of State Standards Post-Common Core" rated the curriculum standards in both math and English and language arts in different states. North Carolina's curriculum standards received an overall rating of “good” in the English and language arts category.

The report stated North Carolina's standards were overall focused and coherent, but there were problems with rigor, including limitations on arithmetic in the early grades, which the report called counterproductive. The report also stated some standards were worded vaguely, and they appeared inaccessible because of their scattered presentation and the absence of information regarding the progression of practice standards. 

The report also provided six recommendations to improve the math curriculum including addressing limitations on arithmetic and reviewing fourth-level math courses to aid in building from foundations in Math I through III. The report also recommends that the state clarifies the explanation of standards for teachers and administrators. 

June Atkinson, former North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, expressed the importance of standards, as well as their implementation into curricula. 

“The state has a responsibility by law to develop standards,” Atkinson said. “Standards are necessary but they’re not sufficient. The curriculum adopted and used in classrooms really affects student achievement.”

Atkinson also spoke to variation in course materials between school districts. 

“There are several factors that would drive how much variety there would be, and one is the textbook adoption,” Atkinson said. “More than likely, you would find less variance between school districts when it comes to math textbooks.”

However, Atkinson also cautioned that the revised standards are still in the process of being implemented. 

“The report I believe was released in August 2018, and the state adopted new standards sometime in September 2017. So, this is really a transition period, and that’s one of the reasons for the score, that the materials were just recently released to help teachers implement some of the standards.”

Terry Stoops, Director of Education Studies at the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh-based conservative think tank, commented on the pitfalls of current math education standards. 

“Especially in regard to our math standards, we have a long way to go at the state to having standards that teachers can effectively use to improve student achievement,” Stoops said.  “The state has a responsibility to create standards that are clear to all stakeholders: teachers, administrators and parents — particularly if there’s an expectation that parents are meant to assist their children in school — and we should have standards that they can easily understand, that they can easily implement in their own household.”

Stoops also spoke to quality of the recent standard revisions.

“North Carolina’s recent revision of state standards actually didn’t make a lot of individual standards clearer than they were when we originally adopted,” Stoops said. “But I don’t think that they actually improved the rigor of standards, and that’s really what we should be concerned about — that the rigor remains mediocre at best.”

@MichaelJTaffe

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