K-12 Math in Washington

Like many other states, the Washington state incorporated the common core K-12 standards that uses a real-world approach to teaching and learning in 2011. The common core national educational standards (CCSS) is an educational initiative launched in 2010, that outlines what k-12 students were expected to know at each grade level for both the English language arts, and mathematics across the US. The purpose of these standards was to aid in shifting the focus of teaching and learning in such a way that helps students gain knowledge and skills that are necessary to be ready for college and the real world. 

Although at first 41 of the 50 US states adopted these standards, as time went by more and more states started introducing legislations to prohibit the implementation of the CCSS or to repeal or replace it. It is important to note that all the states were given an incentive to adopt these new standards as a motivator for this new education reform. The incentive promised states that adopted the new standards a chance to join the competitive federal race to the top grants. For this reason, the first couple of months saw an optimistic and relatively quick adoption of the CCSS by the majority of the US states.

When it came to the math program, the main changes that the CCSS focused on were to first place stronger importance on fewer crucial topics. Second, link these topics with students’ thinking and analysis to improve coherence. And third, push the application of key concepts learnt to help improve students’ understanding and development of skills.  

CCSS – Support & Criticism

The CCSS has received both support and criticism, with opinions varying greatly on whether this program truly brings any improvement to the national educational standards in the US. However, the CCSS has not been a major topic of discussion in Washington state compared to the other states. This is largely because Washington had other pressing educational matters to focus on. The main topic of discussion was about the low funding that public schools in Washington were receiving. Therefore, most lawmakers were too preoccupied to look too much into the new program, and instead majorly agreed that implementing the higher educational standards with the CCSS program was a good step. Since the introduction of CCSS, Washington has not changed their educational curriculum, with English and math programs still following the CCSS standards. 

Almost a decade later, the CCSS program, fails to show any significant benefits or improvement to the educational standards. This is due to several reasons, including problems over the implementation of this program and the unpredictability of the results that it produces. In fact, when it comes to math in Washington and the US, test assessments taken by students show scores that are below than the international average. Over the years, and even post CCSS implementation, the US continues to show stable and mediocre assessment results with little to no improvement. In fact, the math programs in the US show no development based on the 2018 PISA test scores, that are not statistically different from the test results in the year 2000. 

K-12 Math in Washington State – NAEP results

The NAEP mathematics assessment measures students’ knowledge and skills in mathematics and their ability to solve problems in mathematical and real-world contexts. The results for grades 8 and 9 are reported for the nation overall and for states, while the results for grade 12 are only reported for the nation. 

Grade 4 math in Washington

When looking at the state level, between the years 2011 and 2013, 4th graders in Washington initially showed an increase of 3 points on the score-point change scale. This scale measures the positive or negative average change in the test result of the students for math in Washington and other states. This 3-point increase comes after the implementation of the CCSS program. However, between the years 2013 and 2015, there was a 1-point score drop in performance. Similarly, between the years of 2015 and 2017, and 2017 and 2019 the state of Washington saw another 3-point drop, and 2-point drop respectively in the math performance of the 4th graders. Overall, the assessment scores show that the math in Washington has not improved even post common core standards. The overall point change from 2011 and 2019 was a 4-point drop in performance. 

Grade 8 math in Washington

When looking at the state level, between the years 2011 and 2013, 8th graders in Washington initially showed an increase of 2 points on the score-point change scale. This 2-point increase comes after the implementation of the CCSS program. However, between the years 2013 and 2015, there was a 3-point score drop in performance. Between the years of 2015 and 2017, and 2017 and 2019 the state of Washington saw a 3-point increase, and a 3-point drop respectively in the math performance of the 8th graders. Overall, the assessment scores show that the math in Washington has not improved even post common core standards as the overall point change from 2011 and 2019 was a 2-point drop in performance.

K-12 math performance in Washington 

Overall, for both grades 4 and 8 in Washington, there has either been no significant change or a decrease in performance in the math assessment scores compared to the other states between the years 2011 and 2019. 

Grade 12 math in Washington

Just like the 4th and 8th grade NAEP math state results, the 12th grade national NAEP scores show that between the years 2009 and 2019, there has been a drop in the performance percentage of the students from 64% to 60%. Again, reinforcing that the implementation of the common core standards was not effective in improving the student’s performance of math in Washington, or other states across the US.

Improving K-12 math results: How can MathProject help?

Overall, the learning standards of the K-12 math is not showing any major signs of improvement in students’ math performance. Math is an extremely important subject that helps set the pace for your children’s growth both personally and academically. To see a fast and effective improvement in math, the right math tutoring program is needed to fill in the learning gaps. With MathProject’s advanced K-12 math programs, about 90% of students report being ahead of their class and show improvements and developments in real life crucial skills. 

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Citations:

Mathematics Standards: corestandards.orgCommon

Core State Standards Initiative: wikipedia.org

State not joining revolt against Common Core learning model: seattletimes.com

Why the Common Core standards failed — and what it means for school reform: washingtonpost.com

What 2018 PISA international rankings tell us about U.S. schools: hechingerreport.org

NAEP Report Card: Mathematics: nationsreportcard.gov