After years of pushing students to take above-grade-level math classes, MCPS is reconsidering acceleration, advocating for more review of basic concepts.

In a presentation to the Board of Education, the K-12 mathematics work group recommended that fewer students be accelerated. Deputy Superintendent Frieda Lacey formed the  group of teachers and administrators in January 2009 to assess the quality of math instruction in MCPS.

“Students who don’t really know the material should not be pushed ahead,” said Teresa Brown, a work group member who teaches second grade math at Veirs Mill E.S. “There’s a difference between on grade-level in understanding and on grade-level in mastery. Mastery means that you know the information upwards, backwards, and upside down.”

The work group made 26 recommendations to the BOE Nov. 9, including the suggestion that schools create an online forum to allow teachers to share formative assessments and designate a specific math teacher in every school to assist others who have trouble with specific students or teaching the curriculum.

Before deciding to implement any specific recommendations, board members and other county officials must assess the potential financial ramifications, associate superintendent Erick Lang said.

Previously, county-mandated quotas required a certain number of students to take accelerated math classes, prompting schools to push more students ahead. If Board officials choose to implement the work group’s recommendations, then fewer students will be in accelerated courses and elementary and middle school curriculums will feature more in-depth coverage of basic concepts.

“It just became a race [among schools] to see how many students could be accelerated,” Brown said.

Currently, over half of fifth graders are taking sixth grade level math or higher, according to the work group’s report. The group found that students who took sixth grade math a year ahead of schedule didn’t perform as well in Algebra 1 as the students who took on-level math in fifth grade.

Though parents and administrators often push students into higher level classes at a young age, taking an accelerated track isn’t always beneficial, said Walter Johnson principal Christopher Garran, another work group member.

“There was always the pressure that to get into the most competitive colleges, students had to take the most advanced math classes,” Garran said. “But now we find that they will do better at those highly selective colleges if they move more slowly through the curriculum.”

Intelligent students who would be excelling in advanced high school math classes are struggling because they learned the foundations of math at too early of an age, math teacher Megan Thatcher said.

“If students really understand the basic concepts, they will hopefully remember it better from year to year,” math teacher Steve Hays said. “That way, students can build on that knowledge rather than spending time reviewing what they forgot.”

Though many schools currently look at several factors before accelerating students, like teacher recommendations and test scores,  the work group found that too many students were entering higher level classes without complete mastery of on-level material.

“I wish someone would have stopped my parents, and done some sort of diagnostic test to see if it was a good idea that I skipped a grade level in math before I did it,” junior Claire LaPlante said. “I ended up repeating a year of math because it was in my best interest to stay just one year ahead instead of two.”

Some proponents of acceleration argue that only students who are seriously struggling should be kept on level.

“Among the many students who are going to be kept on-grade level, there are still going to be a wide range of skill levels,” sophomore Rachel Baron said. “If students who are even a little bit more advanced are taken forward, it will be easier for the teachers to help the students who are struggling.”

But parents are concerned about the long term damaging effects of the acceleration.

“Students are losing their passion and excitement for math early on because they have to learn it so quickly,” parent Marcy Berger said. “The big push towards acceleration is a reason we don’t have enough engineers in our society today.”

Other students argue that the option to take accelerated math classes should be an individual choice for parents and students.

“Students are motivated to work harder and rise to the challenge when they are in higher math classes,” sophomore Evan Cernea said. “With the competitive college admission process, Whitman students should get equal opportunities to be in advanced math as students in other counties and private schools.”