Superintendent O'Connell's $3.1B Algebra I Plan

August 14, 2008 by dave

Tuesday, State Superintendent Jack O'Connell "responded" to the State Board of Education's recent decision to require that all 8th graders be tested in Algebra I with a $3.1B plan to address this requirement. From the San Jose Mecury News:

California's schools will need an additional $3.1 billion annually - $2,100 more for every middle school student - to implement the governor's new eighth-grade algebra testing requirement, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday.

That would be more than a 6 percent increase to the state's $50 billion in education spending. The money would be used primarily to extend the school day or the academic year and lower class sizes for middle school students, according to a plan O'Connell and state education leaders presented in Sacramento.

Without the funding, O'Connell said, California can expect an overwhelming failure rate in the algebra tests.

"The governor absolutely must deliver the resources needed to make this mandate succeed," the superintendent said in a morning teleconference.

O'Connell's plan and its eye-popping price tag appear to be his volley back at the state Board of Education, which voted last month to implement Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to require all eighth-graders to be tested in Algebra I within three years.

I have to admit I have some doubts about the bulk of the expenditures in the plan:

Increase instructional time for middle grades so all sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students receive sufficient mathematics, pre-algebra, and algebra instruction and support. Cost: $1.5 billion in General Fund for local support.

While lengthening the instructional day might be a good thing in some cases, it isn't necessarily so. More time with an effective teacher will have a positive impact, but more time with an ineffective teacher isn't going to get students where they need to be. I think some of this $1.5B would have been better spent on merit pay pilots or research-based, well-implemented professional development.

Expand the Morgan-Hart Class Size Reduction Program to include pre-algebra and Algebra I in seventh and eighth grades. Cost: $492 million in General Fund for local support, $369 million in General Fund for school facilities and $305,000 in General Fund for state operations.

So, here we have nearly another billion dollars for class-sized reduction (CSR). CSR is already the largest categorical program after special education. While it makes logical sense that having smaller class sizes would help achievement, in practice it hasn't demonstrated the expected results. What happened was that in order to implement CSR, districts had to add a bunch of classrooms and hire new teachers. The result has been increased school construction costs and a lowering of hiring standards for teachers in poor schools. As with increased classroom time, CSR only works if those students are in smaller classrooms with a good teacher. Smaller class sizes with poor teachers doesn't bring much improvement.

Provide funding for districts to establish and operate "Boost Classes" in elementary, middle, and junior high schools, for no more than 15 students per class identified by a student success team as needing specialized curriculum, instruction, and counseling to address the new algebra requirement. Cost: $175 million in General Fund local support and $185,000 in General Fund for state operations.

This is just more CSR with a new name. It is basically a remedial program and again, it is only likely to be effective if taught by a good teacher.

Expand school counseling services in grades four through eight to identify and provide services for students not adequately prepared to take Algebra I in eighth grade. Cost: $40 million in General Fund for local support and $185,000 in General Fund for state operations.

I'm a little unclear on how expanding counseling services for grades 4-8 will improve academic achievement in Algebra I. I suppose some students could benefit from this extra attention and in the scheme of a $3.1B program, $40M probably isn't too much to ask.

On the positive side, I do agree that increasing funding for existing programs such as MESA and AVIID is probably a good approach. Unfortunately, this is a tiny portion of the funding.

Between the increased class time and CSR, Jack's program devotes $2.536B of the $3.1B plan to activities that will directly benefit his overlords at the California Teacher Association (CTA) in increased dues. Perhaps he should have called it the CTA Success Initiative.

I think in the end, as a colleague told me, this whole discussion of Algebra I for 8th graders is really just a red herring. The real issue is getting all students to grade level, every year. If we do that through their elementary years and the beginning of their middle school years, by the time they get to 8th grade, they'll be ready for Algebra I. This $3.1B proposal is just a band aid attempting to fix a problem that took years to create (K-7) at the back end, rather than focusing on the front end of elementary math instruction.

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