Illustrative Math Causes Concern for Students & Teachers Citywide
The new curriculum may cause more harm than good.
Math scores across the city have been increasingly low, which has concerned former New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks. Illustrative Math, a new curriculum, was proposed to save the day but has teachers and students worried that it will do more harm than good.
Before his resignation earlier this month, Banks mandated that almost every high school in the city adopt the new math curriculum, specifically for Algebra I. The curriculum, aptly titled Illustrative Math, was rolled out at the beginning of the year. The new curriculum was part of an effort to standardize and improve the way algebra is taught across the city. It arose after the city saw a plunge in Algebra I regent scores.
The original initiative, called NYC Solves, aims to ‘ensure that all New York City students develop math skills, a critical requirement for educational, career, and lifetime success.’ The pilot was rolled out across high schools, while middle schools were able to choose from a list of pre-approved curricula.
The new curriculum was reviewed by a committee of New York City school teachers, leaders, and staff, and was also aimed at helping minority students thrive in the subject. According to the Department of Education, two-thirds of Black and Latino students are not performing at grade level in math, and students in temporary housing and other students who have formal gaps in their education can fall behind when moving to a new school using a different curriculum.
“As the data shows, not only do we have a literacy crisis in this country, we absolutely have a math crisis as well,” former Chancellor Banks told Chalkbeat. “And this struggle with math, for many of us, runs very deep, and it starts early.”
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Illustrative math allows students to ‘discover’ the math process and solve equations with little to no teacher help or instruction. It focuses on visuals, but offers no alternatives for those who may not understand the equation or those who may not have known how to solve it to begin with.
“One thing that I do know is that Illustrative Math will fail to raise test scores for many of the same reasons that EngageNY failed,” said Gary Rubenstein, a math teacher at the elite Stuyvesant High School, in a blog post. “Illustrative Math has a lot of topics that would never be on the Algebra Regents. I think that if a New York student truly knew all the math that Illustrative Math assumes they do in the beginning of this course, they would already know enough to get a passing grade on the Algebra Regents on the first day of the course.”
Meanwhile, in the lower schools, fewer than half of the city’s elementary and middle school students scored proficient on state math exams last year given to third through eighth graders.
Last year, just 34.3% of students who are Black and 35.7% who are Latino demonstrated proficiency on their math exams, compared to 70.2% of white students and 77.6% of Asian American students.
According to Chalkbeat, over 260 schools are using Illustrative Math this year. Teachers received extra coaching, professional development, and supervision from the Department of Education. However, teachers and students alike have struggled with the new adaptation.
“We show them something and don’t tell them anything, and it’s ‘What do you think?’ with no guidance,” one special education teacher told Chalkbeat. “For a special education student who already needs a little more help, it makes it almost impossible, they check out, they lose interest.”
While the new curriculum may look good on paper, students, teachers and parents alike may struggle to adjust to the new way of learning.
“We have a mess on our hands,” United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said. “I’ve been to a lot of high schools, and in every school, they’re telling us the same exact thing: that in the end, the students are going to be harmed.”
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