Board might help teens struggling with math

The state Board of Education could be ready to throw a potential lifeline to students who are struggling to learn a tougher math curriculum and to stay on track to graduation.

Plenty could use help: Forty-eight percent of Georgia high school students failed the End of Course Test in Math II in May. Thirty-six percent didn’t pass Math I.

Students currently can sign up for remedial or Math III support, but as an elective, not part of the core curriculum needed for graduation, said Matt Cardoza, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

That could change for struggling math students, based on state board discussions Wednesday and a likely vote Thursday. That vote would make it possible for students to take the slower-paced remedial class and receive core credits.

The change would be effective for this year and the 2011-12 school year, Cardoza said.

“This would allow [the students] to receive extra help and stay on pace to graduate with their classmates,” he said.

Math III -- an Algebra II and statistics course -- could then be taken in the students’ senior year,  Cardoza said.

Both Math I and II integrate multiple math concepts, something critics say has made an already tough subject area even more challenging.

Supporters argue that math scores will improve with time as teens become more familiar with complex concepts in algebra, geometry and statistics, which are being taught to students earlier than ever.

Since 2006, the state has rolled out new math curricula each year, starting in sixth grade, as part of a charge to better prepare students for college and careers, administrators said. Last year, when the state rolled out the new math curriculum to sophomores, they created the Math II support, or remedial class, as an elective.

By 2012, Georgia students will need to take four math courses to graduate.

John Konop, the parent of a Woodstock High School senior and a critic of the new math curriculum, said he can't see students benefiting much from the remedial help.

The curriculum, he said, "jumps around too much."

"It's not taught in building blocks and sequences," Konop said, "so the kids get confused."

Konop said the state ignored concerns that parents and teachers raised when the curriculum was being developed. Now the only winners are the tutoring companies that parents are hiring, he said.

The math overhaul was pushed by former state Superintendent Kathy Cox. Cox resigned in June to run a Washington education think tank, and some parents and teachers hope that new leadership might slow, dilute or scrap the program.

For students, the program got off to a rough start. In 2009, nearly 20,100 failing grades were handed out to high school freshmen in Georgia -- about 17 percent of all grades given in the new Math I course. That's more than double the percentage of failing grades given in the eighth-grade preparatory class the previous year.