At least 82 of Georgia's 180 local school superintendents want to be out from under the state's mandate to teach the integrated math curriculum that tens of thousands of high school students are failing, a recent survey shows.
Instead they favor returning to traditional, single-subject math classes or giving local districts the option of choosing to teach by one or both methods, the state Department of Education found in a on-line survey conducted earlier this month.
The results appear to mirror where the State Board of Education is headed -- and that's away from the mandate that public schools teach multiple math disciplines in a single course.
At a called meeting set for March 14, the state board is expected to approve three new math courses, a move that would open the door for systems to return to teaching by the more traditional method of one subject at a time.
The board, at state Superintendent John Barge's suggestion, also is contemplating help for the math strugglers who are at risk of not graduating on time by allowing math classes that are at a slower pace and have been electives to count toward the four core math courses required for graduation. No one has a firm number on just how many students that is, but Barge has said it could be “in the thousands.”
Statewide, 80,000 students failed their final exams in integrated math last spring. Some districts had spent millions on textbooks and teacher training for the curriculum.
Earlier this month, the state Department of Education solicited feedback from local superintendents. Of the 129 who participated in the survey, 36 percent said they favor keeping the integrated math, 29 percent said they want to return to traditional math and 35 percent said they want the choice of one or both.
Barge said he thinks the results reflect the sentiment of the majority of superintendents.
"The majority want something different," he said. "Ultimately, they want a direction and they want it to be settled."
Barge said he's glad systems will have flexibility, following board action.
"One delivery model is probably not the best for all kids," he said. "It had nothing to do with the rigorous standards. We all agree they're good, and we want to keep them. But for a lot of our kids, it was the way it was delivered. Giving systems the option to deliver the way kids get it is good."
Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, said the superintendents who want to keep integrated math are likely the ones who have invested significant time and money into professional learning for their teachers.
Garrett said implementation of the integrated math curriculum had problems from the outset.
"The state did not put much money or nearly as much effort into it as I think they should have," Garrett said. "That might have headed off some of this."
He said he believes a majority of local superintendents would say that "the implementation of that massive change in math was done entirely too quickly and without the necessary investment in the teachers."
One problem, Garrett said, was that the state used the train-the-trainer model, where systems would send one person to the training who would come back and train their colleagues.
"The professional learning was not done well at all," he said.
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