Textbooks only part of equation when teaching to new standards

An unfavorable national review of math teaching materials claims many of the most popular publishers don't meet the requirements for the new Common Core State Standards, but Johnson City Schools administrators say textbooks are only part of the equation.In a study released last week, EdReports.org, a nonprofit organization tasked by its board of directors and funding sources to review the quality and usability of teaching materials purported to be aligned with the Common Core State Standards, gave failing grades to many of the country's largest and most popular textbook publishers.According to the organization's groups of reviewers, chosen from willing educators and administrators, 17 out of 20, or 85 percent, of the selected math textbook series did not, alone, adequately provide students with the instruction needed to reach the benchmarks defined by the new education system.Though the books' publishers criticized EdReports.org's tiered evaluation process, the texts were ranked for each grade level either as "does not meet criteria," "partially meets criteria" or "meets criteria for alignment to Common Core," the latter of which only one series, publisher Great Minds' "Eureka Math" consistently attained for all intended grades.But textbooks are only one part of the tools used by teachers in the classroom, Robbie Anderson, Johnson City Schools' director of accountability and improvement said Friday."You're never going to find a textbook that does everything you're going to do in the classroom 100 percent," Anderson said. "If anybody did come and say that their materials do that, I would be highly suspicious of them anyway."The city district, and most others across the state, are currently in the process of approving math textbooks, of which Anderson has been overseeing some of the selection.Amid the implementation of the Common Core targets in math and English language arts, however tenuous their future may be at the moment, the state Department of Education preempted the regular rotating schedule of textbook adoption to allow districts to choose new math materials.To facilitate the adoption and promote a level of uniformity, the state distributed a list of approved materials that committees selected as acceptable and conforming to the new standards, which Anderson said she and the district's committees trust."There was a lot of good information the state committees went through looking at publishers and approved textbooks to make sure they had good alignment with Tennessee State Standards," she said. "Our committees are not looking at anything on the list to make sure they're aligned to the standards. We've relied upon the state's process, and we felt it was rigorous enough."The committees Anderson has mostly been working with concern the adoption of books for math classes in Liberty Bell Middle and Indian Trail Intermediate schools. Those committees have narrowed the textbook series field down to two: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's "Go Math," which EdReports.org ranked as partially aligned to Common Core standards in six of 12 grades, and Curriculum Associates' "TNCore Mathematics" series, which the organization did not review.But Common Core represents achievement goals, not a set of curricula, an insistence educators often need to make to laypeople not familiar with the new initiative."Some chapters in these books deal with the standards in stronger way than others, but we're not textbook bound," Anderson said. "The teachers are prepared and confident enough in their knowledge of what needs to be taught to reach those benchmarks. If a chapter needs additional support, they can go out and get those materials and bring them into classroom."One of the favored features of both sets of frontrunner books are their adaptability, Anderson said.The teaching materials include "consumables," workbooks with tear-out pages, that the publishers have vowed to update with new methods if the uncertain education landscape in Tennessee were to again shift."We're not going to be purchasing hardback books to use for six years, we're going to be purchasing six years of paperback books that can be adjusted," she said. "We're not going to be stuck again with textbooks that are out of alignment, which is what we're facing now."Follow Nathan Baker on Twitter @JCPressBaker. Like him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jcpressbaker.