School Committee Mulls New Elementary Math Programs

The Mansfield Elementary mathematics program is outdated, according to Superintendent Brenda Hodges and Co Principal Teresa Murphy.

Murphy presented a report to the committee detailing the process of getting back on track. Currently, the K-5 grades are using the Every Day Math curriculum program, which, Hodges said, is about 60 percent out of sync with Common Core Standards.

"We're supplementing our current program," she said.

Teachers from grades K-5 have been trying out two new programs since the summer that are designed around the CCS. The CCS is a program lead by National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to apparently make education more consistent and up to date across the nation. So far, only eight U.S. states have not yet adopted it.

The two new programs, EnVisionMath, from Pearson, and Go Math!, developed by Houghton Mifflin, were tested by many different teachers in many different aspects over the course of the year. Each teacher testing the materials was given a section of material concerning a certain topic. For example, one teacher would use Go Math!'s section on multiplication and then use the EnVisionMath's section on division.

Each of these teachers would then take notes on what they did or didn't like about each new program. According to Teresa Murphy, the vast majority of positive comments came from teachers using the EnvisionMath program.

"I know that at JJ, I can only speak to JJ, the responses were good," Murphy said. "I was there when the superintendent was talking about what the responses were [at Jordan Jackson] when [teachers] heard Envision, it was a round of applause."

Murphy said one of the best aspects of the Envision program is that it is 100 percent aligned with the Common Core Standards, which would mean less supplemental learning.

Committee members were somewhat hesitant, remembering a few years ago when they adopted another curriculum program and it was out of date within a year. They agreed that the new math program should continue to be looked into, but they also agreed they do not want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the school budget on a program they may only use once.