A Palo Alto consultant is in the midst of evaluating the school district's middle school math program to get a sense of where it is succeeding and where it needs to be improved.
The evaluation is not going to draw conclusions, stresses David Greene, of the Bay Area Research Group, but will instead ask "how are we doing and what else remains to be done?" He is focusing mainly on balance and consistency among grades, classes and content.
"We're asking, `Are we on the right track?'" Greene said. "We're trying to take a snapshot of a moving target." The school district will do a "summative," or more conclusive evaluation later.
The main issues are balance of content among basic skills, conceptual understanding, and problem solving; balance between "direct instruction" and other teaching methods, and consistency of experiences among students.
Greene has already surveyed 70 middle school teachers, as well as 2,500 students in fifth through ninth grade to gauge their experiences. This month he will interview teachers and compile a report to be ready for the school board by the end of April.
The middle school math program has been the subject of scrutiny by parents who are concerned that the conceptual, problem-solving teaching methods are overshadowing teaching more basic skills such as computation.
"I'm hoping he will reach out into all segments of the community," said parent Ze'ev Wurman, a member of HOLD, a parent group that wants to see the district teach more basic math skills.
Coincidentally, in the district's cycle of curriculum reviews, mathematics was scheduled for evaluation this year. School board member Amado Padilla, a Stanford education professor, suggested last summer that the district hire an outside consultant, and the rest of the school board agreed. The math evaluation will cost the district about $9,000.
"It will help us get a good sense of how the transition between elementary and middle school and middle and high school is," Padilla said. "The intent is not to make people feel good, but to give us an accurate (picture). Are things the way we want them to be?
"I think there have been too many people with too many vested interests at this point, and I think we just need a new perspective on it . . . that will allow us to see what we're doing in math from a different set of eyes."
This is the first time the district has hired an outside evaluator. More than a decade ago, the district employed one full time. Since then, evaluations have been conducted on a site by site basis using state Department of Education guidelines.
"Having a neutral evaluator has some additional advantage," said Associate Superintendent Barbara Liddell. "It will be valuable because we can tell whether the program is working or not. The goal is to have more consistency of experience."
Simultaneously, a second consultant, who has a doctorate in program evaluation from Stanford, is doing an evaluation of the district's early literacy programs in elementary school. Each school has created its own teacher literacy teams and are working toward the goal of having every student reading at grade level by the end of third grade.
--Elizabeth Darling
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