New York schools are changing their approach to teaching math: will it help children?

Many New York City students will soon be taught math using a new curriculum. It is designed to help cope with low academic performance, reports Gothamist.

Efforts to create a more coherent mathematics curriculum will be implemented in phases throughout the system. From this fall at 420 average schools will begin teaching a single curriculum - Illustrative Mathematics, and 93 high schools will have several options to choose from.

Officials are promising more training to help teachers improve their teaching. Last year, only half of students in grades 3–8 were proficient in math.

Program improvements

The new course will replace the disparate training programs currently existing in the system schools.

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The program will provide students with a better understanding of the fundamentals and how mathematics is applied in everyday life.

Innovation in the math curriculum will eventually spread to all grade levels.

Similar efforts have been made in reforming the teaching of reading in elementary schools. These innovations have received praise from education experts. The new system puts into practice research about how children actually learn to read.

Half of the city's primary schools introduced the new curriculum last year, and the other half are set to adopt them in September. Periodic assessments have so far shown little progress, and some parents have criticized the new curriculum as rigid and boring.

The city has already implemented the new llustrative Math for Algebra 1 curriculum in hundreds of schools.

With the new NYC Solves project, the city joins school districts across the state that are trying to improve math scores, especially after scores plummeted during the pandemic.

“NYC Solves is another huge and much-needed step forward. It will help our students achieve better results in math,” said Marielyse Diwanne, executive director of the educators group Educators for Excellence-New York.