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  • Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet

    Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet


    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education

    For folks in the literacy world, the bitter fight over California’s math framework sounded eerily familiar. On one side, proponents of the framework argued that students need to learn to love math, see themselves as math people and grapple with math concepts. On the other, traditionalists argued that the framework spends too much time on unproven, poorly researched ideas that fail to equip students with the foundational knowledge they need to learn more complex math.

    For good measure, there’s even a popular Stanford professor, Jo Boaler, who’s been tagged as the Lucy Calkins of math and whose research has become a lightning rod for criticism from math researchers and educators nationally. Sounds just like the reading wars and the fight between balanced literacy and phonics, doesn’t it?

    For those talking about the new “math wars” and calling for a “science of math,” that’s where the similarities end. Yes, there are serious differences between the two sides of the California framework debate on how to teach math in the elementary grades, when students should take algebra and the importance of calculus. But unlike reading, these pedagogical differences are far from being resolved.

    That’s because the “science of reading” didn’t happen overnight. It was a multidecade movement engaging every sector of our education system including research, media, advocacy, state and local policy and business to tackle an issue — early literacy — that was broadly understood by the public.

    One could argue that the math crisis is far more severe with overall results far behind English and enormous achievement gaps. It is also just as consequential for students, given the connection between early math proficiency and access to higher-level math coursework, post-secondary education and technical careers. To get the attention that math deserves, advocates should learn from the multiyear, multifaceted strategy that’s driven the science of reading movement.

    The first step is articulating how poor math instruction affects a child’s life and harms the most vulnerable students, especially students with dyscalculia, a condition that makes it hard to do math. For years, reading advocates have hammered away at the connection between third grade reading results and the school-to-prison pipeline. Meanwhile, dyslexia advocates showed how poor reading instruction harmed children with reading difficulties. Their efforts expanded public consciousness and led to massive philanthropic and government investments in reading research.

    For years, ways to teach reading with names like “explicit direct instruction,” “whole language and “balanced literacy” fought it out, creating dissension and confusion down to the classroom level. Over the last decade, stunning advances in neuroscience have resolved most of these conflicts. We now know that learning to read is a complex neurological process marked by explicit sequential stages of learning and interlocking skill development. Approaches like early phonics instruction work for the bulk of students, especially kids with reading difficulties like dyslexia while other popular methods like whole language don’t.

    Unfortunately, when it comes to research, math is where reading was 20 years ago, with a similarly animating set of conflicts like the recent California Framework fight pitting “problem-based learning” against procedural knowledge such as memorizing multiplication tables. As we did with reading, we should heavily invest in the neuroscience research that can definitively answer what works in the classroom and what doesn’t.

    Simultaneously, we should build the understanding and the will of state and local policymakers and community leaders about the math crisis, its implications for students and the importance of investing in high-quality math instruction from the earliest grades. This means that school districts shouldn’t wait two years for the state to publish a list of approved materials. Most math curricula in California classrooms are low quality and almost 10 years old. Districts should use the flexibility provided by state law to purchase a new highly rated math curriculum and provide ongoing professional learning and coaching for teachers, especially elementary teachers who are often math averse.

    As we improve our knowledge of the neuroscience of math, state and local leaders shouldn’t sit on their hands. They should build capacity in state and local agencies by creating math departments that rival the size and influence of their literacy departments, hiring senior math administrators and building a cadre of math coaches so that best practices are quickly disseminated to districts and schools. Using current research, they should regularly revisit their math standards to establish a balance between procedural knowledge and problem-based learning. They should adopt the most vigorous quality metrics for math curriculum and intervention materials and require they are up to date, eliminating lags longer than three years between online updates and district adoptions.

    It may be a few years before we have a “science of math” as impactful as the “science of reading.” But with the right focus, research, investments and infrastructure, California can get there with just as many lifelong benefits for our students.

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Dissent, no funding yet for statewide teacher training in math and reading

    Dissent, no funding yet for statewide teacher training in math and reading


    Credit: RDNE stock project

    Legislation that calls for providing all state teachers and aides with math and reading training passed its first legislative hurdle despite the uncertainty of funding and the skepticism of advocates for English learners who dislike the bill’s nod to instruction in the “science of reading,” including phonics.

    Senate Bill 1115 has no secure source of money heading into a tight fiscal year, with Gov. Gavin Newsom all but ruling out money for new programs. His January budget includes $20 million for a designated county office to train coaches who would then train their own teachers in what they learned.

    Neither the bill’s author, Sen. Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara, nor its sponsor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, offered a cost estimate at a hearing of the Senate Education Committee last Wednesday, though it would cost at least hundreds of millions of dollars to train 300,000 teachers. They said they were willing to phase in and focus funding, such as concentrating on early literacy and numeracy skills, and to look for federal and dedicated sources of money.

    Thurmond said training teachers to enable all students to read effectively “is an issue of moral clarity.” Neither he nor Limon offered a cost estimate that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

    “In an age when we have access to substantial brain science about how students learn, it should be unacceptable to train only some educators in the best strategies to teach essential skills,” he said.

    School districts have received billions of dollars between federal and state Covid relief funding, including money to address learning loss — money that could be used for teacher training — but none of that has been earmarked for that purpose.

    State budgets have set aside $50 million to hire and train reading teachers in the most impoverished 5% of schools. But Thurmond said training of trainers, however, does not substitute for providing sufficient funding to ensure training for all teachers and support staff in “high-quality” programs in math and literacy.

    The bill calls for the Department of Education to identify and recommend those high-quality programs by Jan. 1, 2026.  For transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, those should align with “the science of reading” by focusing on results-driven methods of teaching, which may include, but is not limited to, offerings such as Lexia LETRS and CORE Learning.”

    Singling out those specific trainings in the bill were red flags for two nonprofits that advocate for English learners: Californians Together and California Association of Bilingual Educators (CABE). The science of reading refers to research from multiple fields of science that confirm or discount theories on how children learn to read. LETRS and CORE Learning are intensive programs that explain a systematic approach to teaching phonics and other elements of reading consistent with the science of reading.

    Californians Together and CABE, however, complain that those programs overemphasize phonics and “structured literacy” at the expense of English learners’ need for more attention to oral language and vocabulary development.

    Calling Californians Together’s position on the bill a “tweener,”  legislative advocate Cristina Salazar testified at a hearing last week, “We agree that we need more professional learning for educators, but we do have concerns with the bill.  Specifically, it mentioned the science of reading, and it also names commercial programs.”

    CABE legislative advocate Jennifer Bakers said her organization shares the same concerns and “hopes to have a collaborative conversation about a path to move forward.”

    Last year, at the Legislature’s direction, the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing adopted new standards for teaching reading that emphasize explicit instruction of fundamental skills, including phonics. Starting next year, candidates in teacher preparation programs are required to be trained in those strategies.

    Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Boch, R-Yucaipa, asked Thurmond whether the intent is to train existing teachers in the new standards that new teachers will be trained on.

    “Yes, that is correct,” Thurmond said.

    Opposition from Californians Together and CABE this month factored into the quashing of a bill that would have required school districts and charter schools to train all TK to fifth-grade teachers and literacy coaches in instruction based on the science of reading and to buy textbooks from a list endorsed by the State Board of Education. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, ordered Assembly Bill 2222 shelved without a hearing to give time for negotiations with opponents, including the California Teachers Association.

    At the hearing, Thurmond acknowledged similarities between the two bills, although AB 2222 would have been a mandate, while AB 1115 would recommend the selection of trainings.    

    Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education. 

    Thurmond said the language of AB 1115 is well balanced in that it refers to both the science of reading and the state’s English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, which includes multiple strategies necessary for all students, including English learners, to learn how to read. 

    New math framework

    July will mark a year since the State Board of Education adopted a revised California Mathematics Framework, which took four years and three revisions to pass. The drafters and supporters agree that the framework, with emphasis on tangible applications of math, as well as a deeper conceptual understanding of it, will require a shift in teaching and extensive training. But no significant money has been allocated yet, and the process of reviewing textbooks and materials has yet to begin.

    In an interview, Limon said it is important to raise the issue of teacher training now, even if legislation is tied to a future appropriation.

    Part of the public debate in committing public dollars should be, What would the program look like, and how will it serve diverse students? she said. “There is value to that discussion,” she said. Before her election to the Legislature, Limon served for six years on the Santa Barbara Unified school board.

    In 2022-23, only 46.7% of California students met grade standards on the state’s English language arts test; the percentages were 36.6% for Hispanic, 29.9% for Black, and 35.3% for economically disadvantaged students. The scores were worse in math:  34.5% of students overall, with 22.7% of Latino, 16.9% of Black, and 22.9% of economically disadvantaged students meeting standards.





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