Federal data shows that student math scores are still lower after the pandemic. Maine education officials are responding with a new effort to show students that math has real meaning.
MARTÍNEZ, GUEST:
Federal data suggests that student math scores, which fell during the pandemic, are continuing to decline. The state of Maine is trying to turn things around with a new initiative. Madi Smith from Maine Public news from a small school district.
SEAN DONOVAN: If you can get into groups of three or four, you can turn the chairs around. And we’re going to do a Candy Crush Data Challenge.
MADI SMITH, BYLINE: In Sean Donovan’s career math class, Brewer High School juniors and seniors engage in one of Donovan’s (ph) activities. They use Skittles to get the mean, median, and distribution of colors in each pack. Junior Cassie Leavitt (ph) goes to class.
CASSIE LEAVITT: These skittles are looking really good right now.
SMITH: I know.
CASSIE: (Laughs) I want to eat them.
SMITH: Donovan says the data collection skills in this business apply to election polls, medical sampling, supply chain optimization and more. Donovan also expects his students to calculate their answers to problems using formulas in spreadsheets.
DONOVAN: Digital skills are now very important for most occupations. So that’s another piece that goes into the classroom.
SMITH: Senior Andre Lutz likes to use his computer.
ANDRE LUTZ: That way you can actually learn something, like different tools and objects that you can use.
SMITH: Lutz wants to study criminal justice.
LUTZ: When we did our first project, we had to combine something in the real world with some of the things we were learning in math. So I just did it based on like crime and stuff.
SMITH: It’s part of a new effort by Maine education officials to show students that math has real meaning, and it’s coming in response to low math scores.
BETH LAMBERT: We’re really getting closer to math being a skill as well as a language.
SMITH: Beth Lambert is the principal of teacher and instruction at the Maine Department of Education. She helped build the state’s new Back to Basics Action Plan.
LAMBERT: I don’t want to say that low test scores are the new norm because we feel like we’re accepting something that I don’t think. But I think there is a new normal in education. There is a new expectation.
SMITH: The new expectation, he says, is to make math relevant to kids by connecting it to their everyday lives.
LAMBERT: That’s what you’re going to see change, you’re going to see that shift in our classrooms where students are saying, teach me that. I want to know. Give me these skills.
SMITH: Lambert says that given Maine’s tradition of local control, it’s up to districts to decide if and when they want to incorporate the new guidelines. The Brewer High School District didn’t hesitate. Since the pandemic, the district has been trying to close gaps in students’ math skills.
RENITA WARD-DOWNER: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity.
SMITH: Renita Ward-Downer, who oversees curriculum and professional development for Brewer’s District, says something had to change.
WARD-DOWNER: I think our students have changed, too. And so we have to think about how we can meet their needs and think about how we can build that. Math is important. Math is relevant.
DONOVAN: So it’ll be interesting to see how the color distribution, if they’re consistent…
SMITH: Back in Sean Donovan’s math class, the students learn that the distribution of Skittle colors is somehow random. Student Andre Lutz was hoping for more specific colors.
LUTZ: My favorite Skittle flavor has to be green, probably. I don’t know if it really tastes good. I only know the color.
SMITH: Once his group finished the calculations, Lutz had one more question.
LUTZ: Does that mean I can eat them now?
DONOVAN: Yes.
SMITH: For NPR News, I’m Madi Smith in Brewer, Maine.
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