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NGSS Physics and Biology Textbook Adoption: Follow-up from the 5/22/25 Board Meeting

The section of the 5/22/25 Board meeting about NGSS textbook adoption is summarized followed by a list of questions, answers, and remaining action items.

5/24/2025 – The Board meeting presentation and discussion regarding the NGSS-aligned biology and physics textbooks was informative and useful but leaves some questions still unanswered. The purpose of this article is to try to obtain this information prior to the final adoption meeting on 6/12/25.

Introduction

Let me begin by saying that the District did a good job in the presentation and gave many convincing reasons why the books should be adopted. The presentation was concise, not overburdened by a massive PowerPoint slide deck, and the following discussion was focussed on essential topics.

I wish to emphasize that it is not my purpose at this point to try and overturn NGSS – that ship sailed in 2018. In 2019 my final article (until this month) on this topic, My SMUHSD Board Report on NGSS – A Lot of People of Good Will Trying to Deal with a Tough Problem, stated in its abstract:

Current problems may eventually be ironed out of the NGSS curriculum. There was a nice display of positive progress at the 3/7/19 Board meeting, but there is still a significant way to go. There will be problems during the transition. Parents unfortunately appear unaware of or unconcerned by this issue.

I was hoping to hear long before now that these problems had been resolved. Unfortunately the Superintendent at that time made several promises of follow-up actions after the March 2019 meeting, but was repeatedly consumed by other issues and was never able to follow up despite replying to several email requests that I sent him. I eventually moved on to other issues myself, and, not long thereafter, I was tutoring AP students almost exclusively.

Seven years passed until I received the email last Monday that the District finally had piloted two acceptable NGSS-aligned textbooks! During all this time, local teachers were writing the college prep (CP) science curriculum by themselves after hours while they were simultaneously trying to teach the class. I had no idea whether they had ever succeeded in completing it. I recommended to parents who contacted me about science class options that they stick with the AP classes despite my earlier love for Aragon’s CP physics as a prerequisite to AP Physics. Early in this transition I also knew that even Aragon HS school counselors were making the same recommendation as I wrote about here:

When signing up for classes for last school year (2017-2018), several of my tutoring students told me that they had been counseled to take AP physics 1 rather than regular physics because “the regular physics class was changing, and the AP physics 1 class was more like the old regular physics class.”

Thus when I recently received the news about the pending textbook adoption, I was eager to see if the curriculum development work had been completed after all this time and if the proposed book really would be useful.

I would actually like to be able to recommend these classes again if they are finally in good shape!!!

Board Meeting Summary for Agenda Item U1

For reference, here is the link to the article that I distributed to Board members, SMUHSD administrators, and several SMUHSD physics teachers prior to last Thursday’s meeting: Update After 7 Years: Finally an NGSS-aligned Textbook

In that article, after an introductory history of the NGSS issue, I listed several bullet points highlighting questions that I hoped to have answered. Those questions will follow this section which is a summary of the District’s presentation. This can also be viewed at greater length/detail on YouTube via this link directly to the video for that agenda item.

Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Julia Kempkey introduced the topic briefly and was followed by Director of Curriculum and Assessment Brian Simmons who gave the District’s presentation as well as the Biology textbook presentation. Capuchino HS physics and project lead teacher Janice Valletta gave the physics presentation.

Director Simmons reviewed the college prep (CP) science course sequence for the district and included data on science pass rates in his first slide (again please use the link two paragraphs above to see this information – my purpose here will be only to highlight quickly the significant conclusions). In his second slide he explained the reasons why the district went through the evaluation process. He noted that it took about 10 years after the adoption of the NGSS standards by California for textbook publishers to produce an aligned textbook for biology and physics and that there still is no chemistry textbook that satisfied the District’s chemistry teachers. The District was also seeking material that could assist historically underserved groups (HUGs) and people with reading disabilities. The chosen books are not only aligned with the standards but are also available in multiple languages and have tools to assist students with reading disabilities. The books also integrate with the District’s Canvas learning management system and provide hardcopies for classroom use and digital copies for home use. The selected publisher also needed to provide technical support and teacher training on their product.

Director Simmons then reviewed the selection process. A list of 5-6 textbooks for each subject was winnowed down to two by the teachers and then each was piloted in classrooms for a month during March and April. In early May teachers met and recommended the two Savvas textbooks.

Director Simmons then gave a brief slide about the Biology process. The most important points were that both teachers and students liked the Savvas texts the best, its Canvas software integration was the strongest, and it had multilingual and English learner support.

Physics teacher Janice Valletta then spoke briefly about the Physics evaluation. She noted that NGSS tries to give students scientific skills instead of trying to teach them broad physics content, i.e., the NGSS classes go into less content but in greater detail. The teachers had no textbook initially (back in 2018) and met after school to develop lessons.

Over the years they developed 12 NGSS Common Learning Experiences (CLEs) to cover the subject, but they did not have enough reading material for the students to gain information outside of the CLEs. Thus they were glad when the new textbooks finally appeared on the market and were eager to review them. Although the previous Conceptual Physics textbook by Hewitt was available, it was based on the older broad content model instead of going into depth on the topics covered by the CLEs, i.e., that book did not have the “NGSS inquiry basis” that teachers and students needed.

Out of the two books piloted, both teachers and students loved the Savvas book and several students asked Janice if they could instead read the Savvas book during the pilot of its competitor.

Mrs. Valletta said that teachers who were not in the pilot will need professional development time to learn the Canvas software integration and new science teachers to the District will also require training. Physics teachers will also continue to develop curriculum after hours.

The Board was then allowed time for questions.

Trustee Andrade Zúñiga asked about the training process for new teachers. Director Simmons replied that they are given three days of introductory training by the District and then further training by departments. Janice Valletta added that not only do teachers have peer support groups but also wider District email lists.

Trustee Jacobson asked how will the new textbook be used and was told by Mrs. Valletta that it will be reading material to support the CLEs. Students observe the CLE phenomena during classroom activities, think about them and discuss them on their own, and then will use the hardcopy textbook in class and other sources such as news articles to learn more about the subject. The online textbook can be used at home and also features Spanish language capability, an audio reader for those with reading disabilities, and online movies about the phenomena.

Trustee Jacobson asked about lab materials for the textbook. Those are available but SMUHSD already has most of the materials it needs. Director Simmons noted that lab materials will be purchased for Peninsula HS which does not have them.

Trustee Jacobson asked about the textbook costs. Director Simmons said that costs will be presented at the 6/12/25 meeting and are still under negotiation, but will be around $350,000 for the Biology program and about $200,000 for physics. This will include 35 physical textbooks for classroom use for each teacher and eight year digital licenses for student online use.

Trustee Griffin noted that since the textbook will be a supplement instead of a determinant of the curriculum, how does the Board know that the teachers are following the NGSS curriculum? Mrs. Valletta said that the textbook serves as a guideline but that the teachers frequently refer to the state NGSS guidelines to ensure this. Director Simmons also mentioned that the District has codified course guidelines for these classes.

Trustee Griffin asked why after so long there is still no chemistry text. Director Simmons responded that NGSS topics are more complex. As an example, the first unit in chemistry is on plate tectonics which was not in previous high school chemistry classes.

Trustee Jacobson asked if all of the NGSS courses have CLEs and was told that this was the case. The new texts support these CLEs. Director Simmons said that after 10 years without texts, the work now will be integrating use of the texts into the CLEs that the District teachers prepared.

Finally Trustee Griffin said that after 10 years without a textbook, now that we finally have one, will NGSS be about to reach its shelf life and be replaced by something new? Director Simmons replied that this is why we need to purchase digital texts that can be easily updated and buy as few hardcopy texts as possible since these are dated quickly.

Trustee Griffin’s question gets to the heart of my initial 2018 objection to this entire effort. Director Simmons and I are essentially in agreement that we need a program that can be gradually updated, not revolutionized every decade. If the State decides to uproot everything again, we could still go back to square one a second time.

Finally I was granted a short time to speak and asked Janice Valletta a few questions about the CLEs, e.g., if they now covered the entire mandated NGSS curriculum. This discussion was brief and can be viewed directly on YouTube here.

I ended with a plea to Superintendent Booker to create a Citizen’s Oversight Committee as an advisory group on curriculum matters and textbooks. I noted that there are many scientists and technologists in our area, as well as many retired teachers, who could serve on such an advisory committee, and their advice need not be binding. This method would be far superior to the current public feedback method involving last minute public notifications and only allowing 3 minute sound bite comments, not to mention the inability to provide feedback until the entire process is essentially complete and the outcome set in stone.

Question List and Action Items

Below are my bulleted questions submitted to the Board prior to the 5/22/25 meeting followed by italicized answers that I heard during the meeting and/or my requests for more information which are bolded but NOT italicized. Answers that are only italicized require no further action.

Did the teachers have access to more of the textbook than only the one chapter on waves that the public can see? If not, how do they know how well the entire textbook actually aligns with NGSS?

The teachers and students had full access to the textbook.

How many additional CLEs have the teachers developed over the seven years since that meeting and will the adoption of this textbook replace the use of those CLEs?

Between 2018 and 2019 the teachers had developed 6 CLEs. There are now 12. The textbook will not replace the teacher-created CLEs but instead provide more in-depth readings about those topics in addition to multilingual support, support for students with reading disabilities via audio readers, online videos and problem sets.

I also asked Janice Valletta during the meeting if CLE development for the class had by now covered the NGSS requirements. She said that the 12 CLEs did cover the requirements, but there was still some work ongoing to produce shorter one day CLEs for teachers who had trouble fitting the longer one week CLEs into their curriculum.

This partially answered my question above, but also raised additional questions which I did not have time to pursue in my allotted comment time. The twelve longer CLEs were described as being around a week in length each. There are far more than 12 weeks in a school year, so it is still unclear how the classroom work actually unfolds. After the CLE itself, it sounds like there must be extensive other analysis work of the phenomenon in question but that is not considered part of the CLE?! I was under the possibly erroneous impression that the CLE was essentially encompassing the entire activity on a particular topic, but perhaps it is just referring to the introductory observations? Secondly, if some teachers are not using the week-long CLEs this sure sounds like the NGSS standards are not being implemented in some classrooms.

Will the textbook actually be used frequently as an active teaching source or is it merely to be provided as a student home reference to meet a state requirement to have a textbook for the class?

The hardcopy textbook will be used in class for deeper reading about the phenomenon covered in the teacher-created CLE and the online version of the textbook will be available for student use at home.

How much will the textbook cost the district?

The costs will be presented at the 6/12/25 meeting and are still under negotiation, but will be around $350,000 for the Biology program and about $200,000 for physics. This will include 35 physical textbooks for classroom use for each teacher and eight year digital licenses for student online use.

Are there also materials for conducting the labs that come with the textbook? If so, how much do they add to the cost?

There are lab materials available, but most teachers already have materials for their activities for each CLE. Director Simmons noted that lab materials will be purchased for the Peninsula HS which does not have them. I did not hear a cost for these mentioned during the 5/22/25 meeting and assume that this will be provided at the next meeting.

If the textbook will only be used as a reference and teachers will primarily use their own CLEs, why not just keep the Hewitt textbook as a reference and save the money, particularly if the teacher-created CLEs differ substantially from those in the textbook?

The textbook will be used actively in the classroom, not merely as a take-home reference that might be seldom consulted by the student. The textbook CLEs align well with the teacher CLEs. The Hewitt textbook does not have the in-depth readings needed to cover the NGSS CLEs.

A critical component of any physics textbook is the quality of its homework problem sets! When I looked at the problem set on waves, the problems were routine and not very inspiring. The computer interface was also rather clunky. If the evaluation material was restricted to the chapter on waves, how can we know the quality of the problem sets in the vast majority of the book that remains unseen?

Only the public evaluation material was restricted to waves. The pilots used the complete textbook.

However, it still appears to me that the actual 4 week pilot may have been limited to the wave material as the comments in the teacher textbook evaluation report were limited to waves; this was not addressed in the Board meeting.

It is also not clear to me to what extent the NGSS classes even assign textbook problems. In 2019 Superintendent Skelly said that he would allow me to accompany him to some class observations, but sadly this never happened. I would still like to know more details about the actual classroom implementation. All the Board was shown in 2019 were a few short video clips of students engaged in NGSS classroom activities.

Also if by some chance NGSS actually excites students about science and they decide to go on to a college science major, they may then have a rude awakening if they find that the college classes require doing problem sets, especially in physics!

Having access to a hardcopy textbook would have helped me quickly page through the problem sets and examine their contents. The problem set displayed in the online wave evaluation chapter requires a user to go through the set sequentially, clicking through only one problem at a time.

Is there also a hardcopy textbook or is the book entirely online?

As noted above, a hardcopy text is available. This question was posed, not because of a presumed fetish of mine for hardcopy texts, but for quicker review capability. I had to go directly to the publisher web site and hunt around just to find the overall textbook table of contents. It was not in the public review material. The online version also made it impossible to quickly review problem sets as noted above. I would still greatly appreciate seeing a copy of the hardcopy textbook and also seeing an actual NGSS class in action.

Conclusion

Finally, please allow me to thank the District in advance for attending to my requests above. I am happy that we may finally be seeing the light at the end of the long conversion of the CP science curriculum to NGSS standards. I am elated that such textbooks are finally available for physics and biology, if not for chemistry. I currently see no reason to oppose adoption of the proposed textbooks, but would still appreciate answers to the remaining action items before the 6/12/25 adoption meeting if at all possible.

The question of whether or not this conversion of our previous CP Physics program to NGSS was worth the lengthy time and disruptions that it took to make is something that I personally still do not have enough information to answer. The District could answer this question by providing the follow-up that Superintendent Skelly committed to 7 years ago.

Right now it still looks to me that this whole process was excessively complex and put an unconscionable burden on the teaching staff who nevertheless valiantly rose to the occasion.

When Trustee Griffin joked that NGSS had taken so long to implement that it might now be time for something new again, he was met by smiles from several people. That reaction and usual resignation to the whims of state bureaucracy still concerns me. It is similar to the resignation which has put us into our current national political mess.

Prior to NGSS we had an excellent physics curriculum created by nationally recognized teachers. Next time we must show greater resolve and lobby vigorously and far in advance for exemptions to these initiatives if we are satisfied with this new NGSS creation. Otherwise we continue to hurt our kids who end up as guinea pigs in a curriculum experiment, and we line the pockets of educational consultants and publishers who profit greatly from these massive changes.

I agree with Director Simmons that we need online texts that can be easily updated, but it would be a BIG MISTAKE to sit idly by while an external force requires us to completely rewrite the science curriculum yet again!.

NOTE: For follow-up actions after this article, please see my comment below. The SMUHSD Board of Trustees adopted the new NGSS-aligned physics and biology textbooks at their 6/12/2025 meeting.

Update After 7 Years: Finally an NGSS-aligned Textbook

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were a major national change to the non-AP science curriculum. We are still feeling the shocks locally 7 years later.

5/22/2025 – After 7 years, the San Mateo Union High School District is this very evening holding a public hearing to discuss adoption of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) physics textbook. I only learned about this development from a District email sent out on May 19th, three days before the meeting, at which time they announced this topic and opened the floor for public comment. The book will be on the agenda for final approval at the June 12th Board meeting. I apologize in advance for any typos, etc., but because of the ridiculously limited time to get this information to the Board prior to the meeting, I will be publishing this article as soon as possible and then continuing to do edits afterwards

Before I provide comments on this textbook, first some background information for those less familiar with the NGSS topic:

In January 2018, I first learned about major changes to the non-AP, i.e., “College Prep” science curriculum when my Aragon physics tutoring students started bringing home new error-ridden homework worksheets instead of the excellent problem sets that had been used in the college prep physics class for many years prior. Therefore, on 1/27/2018 I sent out the following warning article to parents.

I made many inquiries about why this was happening, held meetings with SMUHSD administrators, spoke to the SMUHSD Board, and wrote several subsequent articles over the next year describing the unfolding changes:

An Open Letter to the SMUHSD and SMFCSD Boards of Trustees

3/1/2018 – The public deserves better notification and input into major changes in the math and science curricula.

My Speech to the SMUHSD Board on NGSS

3/16/2018 – We must take action to stop educational experiments on our children.

Rewriting Your Child’s Science Curriculum – the Bold NGSS Experiment

12/26/2018 – Five years after the Next Generation Science Standards were released, many districts still do not have NGSS textbooks according to Education Week magazine. Another bold experiment in education puts our kids at risk…

My SMUHSD Board Report on NGSS – A Lot of People of Good Will Trying to Deal with a Tough Problem

3/10/2019 – Current problems may eventually be ironed out of the NGSS curriculum. There was a nice display of positive progress at the 3/7/19 Board meeting, but there is still a significant way to go. There will be problems during the transition. Parents unfortunately appear unaware of / unconcerned by this issue.

Now 12 years after the standards were released and 7 years after the teachers were tasked by the State of California with writing the curriculum without a supporting textbook while simultaneously trying to teach the class, we are finally looking to adopt a textbook.

In my article above Rewriting Your Child’s Science Curriculum – the Bold NGSS Experiment, I quoted at length from a June 5, 2018 Education Week article detailing the nationwide problems that implementing the standards without a textbook were creating.

The Education Week article also details the many problems that districts encounter when they try to adopt new textbooks. Teaching is already a very difficult job and textbook evaluations present additional major burdens. The article states:

Districts face major obstacles in trying to get a good handle on what’s out there: It’s labor intensive and it’s costly.

“Materials selection in general isn’t frequently given the time, effort, energy, and resources it deserves,” said Matt Krehbiel, the director of science at Achieve. “To really dig into the materials and look for evidence of these innovations takes time. And that means either during the summer or getting teachers out of classrooms for multiple days. And that’s not typical in a lot of districts.”

I have seen examples of failed textbook adoptions over the last 3 decades in both our local elementary and high school districts because of constraints like the above as I detailed in my article How Can We Reclaim Our Public Schools??.

Yet here we are once again! The public has been presented with a physics textbook on which we are asked to provide comments in a matter of days when ONLY A SINGLE CHAPTER on waves from the book was made available to review!

When I spoke to the Board on 3/8/2018 about the effects of these textbook adoption and curriculum failures I said:

Far too often curriculum changes are presented to the public as a fait accompli and then children and parents live with the consequences for years.

THIS HAS TO STOP!!

We have Citizens Oversight Committees for major construction projects, but when decisions are made that may affect students for a decade afterwards, the public is given almost no time to react!!

If parents in the area were predominantly uneducated, I might understand why the District would limit public input, but we live in one of the most scientifically and technically accomplished areas of the world.

I requested in the 3/8/2018 speech to be allowed to serve in a volunteer capacity on such an Oversight Committee and mentioned that there might be many other qualified people in the area who would also be interested in volunteering. It is now 7 years since those suggestions were made and SADLY business continues as usual…

Board members are the only people who can ask extended questions of the teachers who evaluated the textbooks, but they often do not have the requisite subject expertise to do so. Concerned citizens like myself are limited to 3 minutes, so the best that I can hope to do is list some of the following concerns and hope that the Board members will seek answers to them:

Did the teachers have access to more of the textbook than only the one chapter on waves that the public can see? If not, how do they know how well the entire textbook actually aligns with NGSS? We clearly do not want to rely on the publisher-provided marketing material that is part of online evaluation material! The teacher evaluation report only mentioned the wave chapter, so I am gravely concerned that the teacher evaluation was also limited to just this small amount of material!
During the 3/7/2019 SMUHSD Board meeting, physics teacher Melanie Cotter from Mills HS gave an excellent presentation on the NGSS lessons that local staff had prepared. She described how the teachers were collaborating to develop Common Learning Experiences (CLE) which are shared lessons and how big an improvement this was over the past when teachers would develop lesson plans in isolation. She gave examples of six CLE’s that she and her fellow teachers were very proud of. When I spoke following her presentation I applauded this effort but mentioned how time-consuming this work was, stating that “As an example of how hard this lesson planning task is, the Achieve organization that spearheaded the writing of the NGSS standards provided vetting tools for lesson compliance and began posting model lessons on their website according to the Education Week article that I sent to you. As of last June when the article was written 100 lessons had been submitted and only 8 were selected and posted. As of today three quarters of a year later, that number has risen to a whopping total of 14 for all of K-12!“
How many additional CLEs have the teachers developed over the seven years since that meeting and will the adoption of this textbook replace the use of those CLEs?
Will the textbook actually be used frequently as an active teaching source or is it merely to be provided as a student home reference to meet a state requirement to have a textbook for the class?
How much will the textbook cost the district?
Are there also materials for conducting the labs that come with the textbook? If so, how much do they add to the cost?
If the textbook will only be used as a reference and teachers will primarily use their own CLEs, why not just keep the Hewitt textbook as a reference and save the money, particularly if the teacher-created CLEs differ substantially from those in the textbook? Contrary to the statement in the Board material, the Hewitt textbook does not present students with obsolete scientific knowledge and the laboratory manual for that textbook was developed by a Presidential Teaching Award winner, our own Paul Robinson from San Mateo HS!!.
A critical component of any physics textbook is the quality of its homework problem sets! When I looked at the problem set on waves, the problems were routine and not very inspiring. The computer interface was also rather clunky. If the evaluation material was restricted to the chapter on waves, how can we know the quality of the problem sets in the vast majority of the book that remains unseen?
Is there also a hardcopy textbook or is the book entirely online?

I hope the Board will get answers to the above questions and make them publicly available. This list is all that I have been able to compile given the time limitation.

Finally, I appeal to Superintendent Booker and the Board to seriously consider creating a Citizens Oversight Committee for textbook and curriculum review. Sadly, due to the current contentious political environment, this might seem to be opening a Pandora’s box, so citizen participants should be required to have relevant teaching experience and preferably masters-level or higher subject area degrees.

Addendum added just after 12:00 AM, 5/23/25:

The Board meeting went past 10:00 PM. The video is at

https://www.youtube.com/live/ZiOUeJb_wM8

Before the meeting, I handed out paper copies of the blog article to the Board members in case they had not yet seen the online version that I emailed to them this afternoon. At 45:13 in the video, I made an initial 3 minute comment about the motivation for the blog article and what I hoped to learn from the meeting.

I apologize if my extemporaneous comments were at times disjointed tonight. I was working feverishly for hours on this article earlier today; unlike the District presenting their side of the debate, I am constrained by a 3 minute clock, have been lobbying local school districts on behalf of our kids for three decades now, and am still trying to do so at the age of 71 after sitting through a three hour meeting.

The textbook adoption presentation did not begin until 2:30:05. I encourage interested parties to watch it in its entirety starting at the 2:30:05 timestamp. I asked a couple of questions of physics teacher Janice Valletta beginning at 2:54:04, and then spoke briefly about improving public participation in this process starting at 2:57:08. The public hearing on the textbooks ended at 3:00:00.

I have now written the follow-up to this article after the Board meeting.

A Must-Read Book on Dyslexia

A Review of “Dyslexia Cured: One Child’s Story” by Jane Molnar

Michael Malione is an educator friend of mine who has written for this education blog eduissues.com previously. He is also a friend of Jane Molnar, the author of the book that I am reviewing here.

When I told Michael about one of my grandchild’s struggles with reading in first grade and my concerns about possible dyslexia, he referred me to this book which was self-published by its author on Amazon.

Prior to this referral, I spent a considerable amount of time doing Google searches and reading descriptions and reviews about dyslexia books on Amazon. I discovered that one of the most nationally recognized experts is Dr. Sally Shaywitz who wrote the book “Overcoming Dyslexia” which is in its second edition as of 2020. Dr. Shaywitz is a noted researcher in the field, is co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, has testified before congressional committees on dyslexia policy, and has also written a dyslexia article for Scientific American magazine.

Dr. Shaywitz advocates early testing for dyslexia, as early as kindergarten or first grade, which I immediately noticed was in conflict with the information provided by my local K-8 school district. The district appears to favor postponing such evaluations until as late as third grade since “different children learn to read at different times.” If Dr. Shaywitz’s claim is correct that as many as 1 in 5 children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, I would also have to assume that budgetary considerations play a role in the district’s recommendation. In most school districts, special education already consumes a sizable fraction of their budget, and potentially diagnosing a condition that might be this widespread probably fills school districts with dread.

Dr. Shaywitz, however, advocates that parents do not try to remedy their children’s reading problems on their own. She says that they should leave the bulk of the work to trained reading specialists, but offers parents suggestions in her book for how they can help their children.

Jane Molnar, on the other hand, was a math teacher who was homeschooling her three sons, the youngest of which had severe reading problems. Jane was not a reading specialist, but dove into the subject with a dedication that most parents will not have, nor have the time to match. She initially tried phonics-based programs, but made little to no progress. Later when she had her youngest son evaluated by a specialist in Berkeley, CA, she discovered that her son had a phonemic awareness problem (a severe disability to break words into their component sounds – phonics, by contrast, deals with the sounds assigned to various letters and letter combinations).

He also had a “rapid automatized naming deficit.” Tests of this ability show children row upon row of pictures of familiar objects which they already know and measure the amount of time it takes the child to name them. This issue also affects reading speeds because, although readers initially use techniques like phonics to decipher unfamiliar words, after sufficient practice the brain stores the sight and sound of the entire word in long term memory, and the fluent reader simply retrieves the sound from memory instead of “sounding it out.” This word recognition process is given the technical term “orthographic mapping.”

The bulk of Ms. Molnar’s book ( https://a.co/d/09LhHNJ ) describes in detail the many methods she tried to overcome her son’s reading difficulties. I have read no greater testament to a mother’s love for her child than her descriptions of these efforts. I think that parents of dyslexic students should find her narrative useful and compelling, even if they do not have the time or ability to carry out her program themselves. For example, a reference in Ms. Molnar’s book to Dr. Michael Bend’s ABeCeDarian reading program along with subsequent Google searches led me to the discovery of the relatively new Sharpen Reading Program which I have used with great results to improve my grandchild’s reading ability. (Sharpen will be the topic of a future Eduissues blog article).

Sadly, just as she was starting to make progress with her son’s reading, she went through a divorce proceeding. Her husband argued to the judge that their son needed to be sent to public school to socialize better. The judge initially sided with the father, and the subsequent story of Ms. Molnar’s battles with the Berkeley public school system is completely disheartening. The district appears to have taken every step in their power to prevent Ms. Molnar’s son from getting the help that he needed for his learning disability. However, given my struggles with other education systems as described in several articles on eduissues.com ( particularly https://eduissues.com/2018/01/29/never-believe-educational-experts-or-me/ ), I can’t say that I am completely surprised.

After the better part of a year, the judge reversed his decision and returned the boy to his mother’s homeschooling where the two resumed their progress.

The ultimate result of their efforts are described on pages 250-1 of the book (Kindle edition):

When William was in sixth grade, three years after his first evaluation and dyslexia diagnosis, Dr. Grue did a second comprehensive evaluation.

Dr. Grue was astonished by the results. William was no longer dyslexic. This was not a case of William learning to cope with his dyslexia, or even to thrive despite his dyslexia.

His dyslexia was gone. And gone with it were its root causes.

This surprised me less than it surprised Dr. Grue because the curing of William’s dyslexia had been my goal since Dr. Grue had first laid bare its causes.

Molnar, Jane. Dyslexia Cured: One Child’s Story (p. 251). Kindle Edition.

I have discussed the book directly with Ms. Molnar after Mr. Malione set up a meeting between the three of us. The audacious claim of a “dyslexia cure” has unfortunately led some people not to take her book seriously because the current received wisdom states that dyslexia can not be cured, only partially remediated. Thus some people have refused to even consider her book.

I find this reaction to her book to be very disturbing. While it is completely true that Ms. Molnar’s son’s case is a single incident, I believe that the effort that she made on her son’s behalf needs to be considered. This effort was far above that which the vast majority of parents or school systems will be able to make on behalf of a struggling student, so the two conclusions about dyslexia’s “curability” are not necessarily contradictory.

In summary, this book is an inspiring story about how, through amazing dedication to her child, a mother was able to overcome his reading problems. It has many useful suggestions for concrete actions that parents can take to help their children and deserves a much wider audience than it has received to date.

New Developments in the Data Science Math Controversy

The University of California pushes back on high school data science mathematics classes.

3/14/24 – The following article from Edsource was recently released and provides an important additional perspective on the push for data science classes which was encouraged by the recent revision of the California Mathematical Framework. In particular, this article warns students NOT to skip Algebra 2 in favor of “data science” math courses:

Advanced math in high school prepares students for STEM and data science careers

A quote from the article in the link above:

We know from years of study and practice that learning math is cumulative. In order for California students to be adequately prepared for the science and technology majors they may choose to pursue in college — including data and computer science — the advanced math curriculum in high school is essential. While data science and statistics courses have been rapidly added to high school options and are welcome additions, these courses cannot replace the foundational math content found in Algebra II. We also acknowledge, and encourage, innovative curricula aiming to teach Algebra II via the context of data science, as such courses could be appropriate.

The following Edsource article presents multiple sides to this debate:

UC professors’ math problem: How does data science fit in?

and please note the following two quotes:

The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course.

Robert Gould, a teaching professor and vice chair of undergraduate studies in the statistics department at UCLA and lead author of Introduction to Data Science, said that he disagrees with BOARS’ decision. The course was created under the auspices of the National Science Foundation through a math and science partnership grant.

“We are disappointed, of course,” he said. “We believe our course is rigorous and challenging and, most importantly, contains knowledge and skills that all students need for both career and academic success.”

Will it help or hinder equity?

Critics of substituting introductory data sciences courses for advanced algebra include STEM professors at UC and CSU. Many say they support data science, but not courses lacking the full range of math topics in high schools that students need for STEM or any major requiring quantitative skills. Skipping foundational math in high school will set back the cause of equity for underserved students of color, not advance it, they argue, by creating the illusion that students are ready for statistics, computer science and data science majors when they aren’t. That may force them to take catch-up courses in community college.

Clearly, the battle between academic rigor and social justice rages on in our society.

“Thank You for Being Late”

Pondering what to do next in retirement: a review of Thomas Friedman’s book.

Continue reading ““Thank You for Being Late””

Reducing the Achievement Gap

A different and hopefully somewhat novel approach to addressing this perennial problem.

Continue reading “Reducing the Achievement Gap”

San Mateo County COVID-19 Data One Month After Reopening

Our community is now a month into its reopening and slightly less than a month away from the reopening of our high schools. We can still screw it up!

Continue reading “San Mateo County COVID-19 Data One Month After Reopening”

The Battle Over the California Math Framework Revision

Two stories on the California Math Framework in the media today.

Continue reading “The Battle Over the California Math Framework Revision”

ALERT – “Draft California Mathematics Framework Shortchanges STEM”

4/5/2021 – Introduction by D. Kristofferson:

The California Department of Education publishes guideline documents for academic subject areas in K-12 education. These documents influence teaching practices and textbook publishers and are updated on a seven year cycle. I was alerted by the author of the following guest article, Michael Malione, that the revision for the K-12 California Mathematics Framework document is currently in progress and that public comments are being requested on the draft now.

Mr. Malione has spent considerable time studying the Framework document and has written the critique in his article entitled Draft California Mathematics Framework Shortchanges STEM.

The opinions expressed in the article are his alone, but I share his concern that the proposed 2021 revisions may have a significant and very likely negative impact on mathematics eduction in California public schools. I therefore encourage readers of this blog to consider Mr. Malione’s objections carefully and respond to the Department of Education survey via the link in his article before the April 8th deadline.

Note added 4/14/21 – The first public comment period is over. The committee working on the draft document will review the comments received, make revisions to the framework, and then put it out for a second 60 day round of public comments in June 2021.

The Local Math Wars Begin Again – Part 2

This is a continuation of the article at The Local Math Wars Begin *Again* . The San Mateo-Foster City School District (SMFCSD) recently cited a research study by Burris, Heubert and Levin in the American Educational Research Journal, Spring 2006, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 105–136 which supports detracting middle school mathematics. I have devoted several hours to this paper today and posted the following comments on Nextdoor. I continue to believe that we need to consider other ideas to close the achievement gap besides detracking.

I’ve been going through the paper by Burris et al. for close to three hours today. It is a very detailed and qualified study and I am not completely finished but have read enough to relate some important notes to all of you.

First, I highly doubt that most of the people that cite this study have actually taken the time to really study it.

This does not mean that it is a bad study, but it reflects the myriad complications faced by education researchers, and the text is consequently loaded with required qualifications that make a careful study very time-consuming.

Here are a few examples.

First of all, note that the study was based on a single district in a small Long Island (Nassau County) community. They tried detracking middle school students AND placing them into an accelerated math track as Gene McKenna noted earlier.

Detracking started in 1995 for sixth graders. Six years of students were followed through high school – students from the three class years before the detracking and the first three years of students who went through the detracked program. The last of these students graduated in 2002.

Note that our country has gone through many changes since 2002…

Most of the students in the school district were white with “upper middle class incomes” and the article implies that there was a single high school with an “average enrollment of 1,100 students.” African-Americans made up 8% of the students, Latinos 12% and Asians 2%. The majority of the African-American and Latino students came from lower income families and lives in subsidized or government-owned housing. This is pretty different from our local demographics.

From the paper:

“The district developed a multiyear plan to eliminate tracking in mathematics at the middle school level (Grades 6–8). In addition, it instituted changes in teaching and learning conditions that school leaders believed would help all students succeed. These changes involved the following: (a) revision of the curriculum in Grades 6–8, (b) creation of alternate-day support classes known as mathematics workshops to assist struggling students, (c) establishment of common preparation periods for mathematics teachers, (d) integration of calculators, and (e) a revised mathematics teacher schedule consisting of four accelerated classes and two mathematics workshops.

The district decided that all tracking for instruction in the middle school would end with the sixth-grade class that would enter in 1995 and that all subsequent sixth graders would study accelerated mathematics in heterogeneously grouped classes. The superintendent and the middle school leadership team believed that the combination of (a) heterogeneous grouping, (b) a high-track curriculum, and (c) mathematics workshops would enable all learners to be successful without reducing the achievement of the most proficient students.”

So note above that the district started out with the belief that this method would work and did a lot to make it so:

“Students were placed in the alternate-day mathematics workshops according to teacher recommendations or parent requests. Workshop class sizes averaged eight students, and students were allowed to enroll in or leave the class on the basis of how they were doing in their regular class and their personal desire for support. All work in these classes supported instruction in the regular mathematics classroom, and, whenever possible, students were assigned to a workshop taught by their regular mathematics teacher. Approximately 25% of all students took a workshop class at some time during the year, including a number of high-achieving students who wanted the additional instruction.”

It is clear that this small district thought this process through carefully and devoted resources to improve the odds of success.

The researchers took the data from this district and analyzed it.

To place students into low, average, and high achievement groups, the only data that the researchers had to use was a national math competency test created in Iowa (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) and administered a single time in fifth grade.

Furthermore they had to deal with the problems of dropouts and people entering/leaving the district:

“Selection effects are possible, however, even in stable populations. For example, the inclusion of transfer students whose educational histories differ from the majority could bias a study’s results. A strategy for dealing with such effects is to include only data for the cohort members who have the most similar histories (Cook & Campbell, 1979). To reduce this possible source of bias, we included student data only for cohort members (entering high school in 1995–2000) in regular education who (a) were continuously enrolled in the school district from fifth grade to their exit from high school or completion of this study, (b) entered ninth grade between 1995 and 2000, and (c) had a permanent record folder containing all data of interest.”

This creates obvious problems with interpreting the data for the low achieving group.

The Iowa test mentioned above to define achievement levels creates an issue about interpreting data for the ill-defined high achieving group.

Overall, though, the superintendant and others in that district were happy with the results which is the most important take away.

However, the researchers note in their discussion:

“Nevertheless, it is important that further research explore the essential components of this reform. The district that implemented the reform is a suburban district that has allocated generous resources in providing support to struggling students. Fifth-grade stanine scores in mathematics indicate that students in the district earn higher scores than the national average, and the proportion of low achievers in this study was proportionally lower than the number of average and high achievers. Would the reform work in a district with fewer resources and larger numbers of struggling students?”

They do not know the answer to that question.

This study illustrates common problems with education research. The study is valuable in showing that one community attained the results that it desired. Such an outcome is not guaranteed without the desire to succeed, resources, and careful planning, and no representation is made in the paper that such a reform would necessarily succeed in areas with “larger numbers of struggling students.” This does NOT mean that we should therefore do nothing to help struggling students, but it does mean that simply detracking students in itself is not a magic bullet that will guarantee success.

I may have additional comments later, but this is about all of the time that I can spend on this today. I have not had time to go through the detailed data analysis, but am concerned from a first pass that, even though there was quite an improvement in the low performing group, the results still need detailed consideration.

For example, the “Seq II” high school math class in the paper, which is geometry, went from a 46% “low achiever” pass rate by 10th grade before the middle school curriculum change to a 64% pass rate after the change. Note that passing means a grade of >= 65%.

I don’t have the comparable “low achiever” numbers for our local high schools, but I would not be surprised if they are lower, meaning that this work might be a much heavier lift for local teachers.

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Introduction

Board Meeting Summary for Agenda Item U1

Question List and Action Items

Conclusion

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Will it help or hinder equity?

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