ADVISORY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Education Editors and Writers, Editorial Writers and Olympia Reporters

Contact: Edie Harding
State Board of Education
360-725-6025

State Board of Education Begins Independent Review of Washington’s K-12 Mathematics Standards

The Washington State Board of Education is pleased to announce the selection of Strategic Teaching to conduct its independent review of Washington’s K-12 mathematics standards. “With only 57% of our students passing the 10th grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning and Washington Learns asking us to look at world class standards, we identified this independent review as a top priority in our Joint Math Action Plan last fall,” said Steve Floyd, Chair of the Board’s Math Committee.

Strategic Teaching is a nationally recognized educational research firm, which has done extensive reviews of standards in other states. A six-person team will work on the Washington standards review. Linda Plattner, President of Strategic Teaching, will serve as project manager. She has reviewed the mathematics standards of every state in the country. Ms. Plattner has worked for the National Assessment for Educational Progress, the Council for Basic Education, Achieve Inc., the U.S. Department of Education, and New Standards.

The review team will be led by Dr. Sandy Sanford, who works with schools on instructional improvement using California’s standards. His expertise is in high stakes testing instruments, aligning curriculum and instructional programs with standards. Individuals in the team have worked on state standard reviews in a number of states including: Maryland, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado and Nebraska at the elementary and secondary level.

The purpose of the independent review is to create mathematics standards that are world class and useful to Washington teachers. Washington’s standards will be benchmarked against standards of top performing international countries and other states, as well as national mathematics frameworks.

The review will take place from April through the end of August 2007. Strategic Teaching will work with a Board-selected panel of Washington K–12 mathematics teachers, educational administrators and curriculum directors; higher education mathematicians; parents; and business and community leaders. The State Board of Education intends to hold a public hearing in July and focus groups across the state in August on draft recommendations to provide input for the consultant’s final report due at the end of August.

The draft and final products will include recommendations for specific changes needed to revise the K–12 mathematics standards by elementary, middle and high school levels. Recommendations will be informed by the benchmarking exercise, input from the Washington panel, and the State Board of Education through a public hearing and focus groups.

The $147,000 contract will be funded by grants to the Washington State Board of Education from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Russell Investment Group.

Click here to download additional detailed information.

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