When Reality and Marketing Collide: Critically Examining MVP's “Real-World Scenarios”

BY GUEST WRITER Hava Edelstein

In my opinion, MVP tries to dress up pretty standard word problems as being way more than the generic rather contrived word problems that they are, the kind that are pretty standard in mathematics textbooks. And that is fine.

The difference is that other textbooks aren’t claiming that their contrived word problems are instead Engaging Real-Life Scenarios that Create Entry Points for Differentiated Learners and Facilitate Equity and Intrigue in the Mathematics Classroom. And Compellingly Generate Rich Student Discourse Around Multiple Solutions, can’t forget about that.

That claim is not fine; that seems misleading or even dishonest to me, as if the MVP word problems have some secret sauce or innate superiority to them. I just don’t think they do.

Judge for yourself, I’ve paraphrased 25 MVP problems below: “real-world scenario” or “pretty contrived”? And if by chance it is a “real-world scenario”, would you describe the math problem as particularly unique to MVP or more like standard math textbook fare?

Particularly engaging or more ho-hum?

I believe we could open a number of different math textbooks (remember those, the things with example problems and explanations in them) and hand the word problems in them to individual students or small groups to solve, with a much better outcome on both procedural fluency and conceptual representation than MVP.

Because even if there is no longer direct teaching, there will at least be clear written explanations and worked examples and answers in the back of the book for every other problem, all very standard basic things that are lost in the MVP curriculum, in exchange for (this claim of) Engaging Real-Life Scenario Problem Solving. And now presenting...

25 MVP “Real-World Scenarios”, paraphrased for space/time reasons:

1. Scott is doing pushups to get in shape and every single day he does exactly 2 more than the day before.
2. A chain email is sent to 8 people and each of those 8 people sends it to exactly 10 others.
3. A candy machine gives out 7 candies per quarter; it holds 15 pounds; each pound is 180 candies.
   
4. Augustus is a child who won’t do his homework so his parents give him 10 candies the first day he does it, 20 on the second day, 30 on the third day, and so on.
5. Scott takes up running and runs 1 mile the first week, with plans to double the amount he runs every week.
6. Vanessa has $60 to spend on rides at the state fair, and each ride costs $4.
7. My little sister has a piggy bank that starts with 5 pennies, and exactly 3 pennies are added every day.
8. There are 5 gallons of water in a pool and it fills at a rate of exactly 2 gallons every minute
9. In the Library of Congress, books are larger than average, so each box holds on average 6 books. How many books are in 6, 10, or n boxes?
10. The population of a town is decreasing exactly 1.5% every year.
11. Joe sells vacuums and makes $500 each month plus $20 commission for each vacuum he sells.
    
12. A parking garage charges $3 for the first two hours and $2 for each hour after that.
13. Chandler rides her bike about 12 miles per hour. How many miles will Chandler travel in 30 minutes?
14. Travis and his friends have seen their teacher creating two-column proofs, so they decide to do the same.
15. Tehani is studying a quadrilateral and wonders if she can prove that two particular triangles in it are congruent.
16. Tehani and Tia are playing a guessing game where one person describes some features of a quadrilateral, and the other person guesses whether it is a square, rectangle, or rhombus.
17. Mason explains to Mia why he thinks conjecture 1 is true using the diagram below.
18. Malik’s family is redoing their back yard and draws a map of their plans onto a cartesian graph.
19. Zac is designing a gazebo and starts by inscribing a hexagon into a circle. At a later point, Zac decides to inscribe an octagon instead.
20. An 8 inch round pie is divided into 5 equal slices, a 9 inch round pie into 6 equal slices, and 2 rectangular pies divided into 2-by-4 inch and 3-by-3.25 inch rectangular pieces. Which piece of pie is the largest and which is the smallest and how do you know?
21. Madison is designing a garden with concentric circles and paths that look like spikes, per the design below.
22. Benji, Chau, and Kassandra are building three sand castles, each one twice as big as the previous one.
23. Benji, Chau, and Kassandra are using a triangular prism base in their sand castles and want to calculate the volume of them.
    
24. Carlos, Carlita, and Zac are playing a geometry game where they each try to form the largest triangle by connecting points A and B to a point of their choosing on segment MN, called point C. and last but not least,
25. A zombie invasion is wiping out the population. The number of people are diminishing fast. Each day that goes by 48% of the living population is lost.

Editors comment: This article originally appeared as a Facebook post. I wanted to share Hava's finding because I agree that the MVP word problems are no more "real world" than any other made up math word problem! Again, our leadership has drank the Koolaid on how much better MVP is for "real world" problem solving. But it's not. -- Blain Dillard

MVP Ground-Zero Math Performance Data Exposed, and it Ain't Pretty: An Analysis of American Fork Junior & Senior High Math Trends

An Illustration to Lighten the Mood

Note: Skip ahead to "Background" if you want to jump to the data

What if I told you I had a car to sell you - NO, GIVE YOU - that will bring you an increased feeling of #equity to all your driving needs!?  In fact, you will gain "deeper driving" experiences which enable 21st century transportation skills like you've never seen before!  No more "rote driving!"  We're talking "real world" "critical driving" improvements.   In fact, this new car satisfies all 8 practices of sound driving as identified by the National Council of Car Drivers - get this - by focusing only on ONE of them: Practice #8 - Use the steering wheel.  You heard me right.  By focusing on using the steering wheel the way that I'm going to teach you, you are going to be driving like never before!  I'm willing to GIVE you this car - TODAY - if you are ready to engage in this really popular type of driving discourse.  Soon enough, you'll be driving on DIS-course AND DAT-course!  Get it?  DIS-course?  There's only one catch.  You have to pay ME to teach YOU how to use that steering wheel MY WAY.  And that is the ONLY way you can use it.  Otherwise, Hey, fuggedabout it.    

You say, "All those benefits sound great, but will it help my gas mileage?  I'm getting 58 MPG now, which is pretty good.  And that is my main priority when it comes to transportation!"  

Is that all you think about?  Measuring results?  You're using traditional driving thinking.  I assure you, speaking as an expert in this new drivagogy, you will be delighted in this new "discovery" method of driving the new way.  (Drivagogy is "the method and practice of driving, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.")

Let me tell you, since I have been using my new drivagogy method, my MPG improved from 58 to 57.6 in less than 5 years! 

"But wait.  That's not an improvement.  That is basically flat - actually a slight decline," you say.

You got to understand.  The drive performance improvements don't come right away.  You have to be patient.  After a little productive struggle, you'll get the hang of it.   Here - let me offer you this tasty beverage.  Oh Yeaaaaah.  Here at M.V.P. Motors, you have to taste this to believe it.

So, what would you do?  I'm guessing that most sane people would drive, walk or RUN away from such a proposition.  Unfortunately, that little story is closer to the truth than fiction.

Background

Mathematics Vision Project, LLC, was founded in 2013 by principal Travis Lemon.  In addition to being the thought leader behind MVP, Mr. Lemon currently teaches at American Fork Junior High in American Fork, Utah, where he has taught since 2000.   According to Karen Feld, who is also a math teacher at AFJHS, "Travis is an amazing mathematics educator who is focused on the learning and success of all students."  Additionally. Ms. Feld notes, "My team and I use the MVP materials. These materials are excellent. The MVP materials allow students the opportunity to engage in the 8 Mathematical Practices and allow me the opportunity to include the high leverage and research based Effective Teaching Practices (NCTM, 2014) in my classroom. We have had great success and our students demonstrate high levels of mathematical understanding."

While I don't question Mr. Lemon or Ms. Feld in their passions for being teachers, I have a responsibility to look at the data in light of what we are seeing in Wake County.  My thinking is this: American Fork Junior High School has CLEAR ADVANTAGES OVER EVERY OTHER SCHOOL OR SYSTEM ADOPTING MVP.

1. Expertise: As the creator, author, and #1 user of MVP, Mr. Lemon is arguably THE WORLDWIDE EXPERT on the subject.  
2. Buy-In: Additionally, not only is he one of the MVP teachers at the school, he apparently has an adoring set of peers who wholeheartedly embrace the MVP curriculum.  
3. On Demand Help: Furthermore, if there were ever any questions or issues to work through, Mr. Lemon could provide on-demand professional development in the Teachers' Lounge or cafeteria with his peers.  

Certainly, for these 3 reasons, this is a PERFECT SCENARIO in which to deploy MVP and observe the mathematics comprehension bliss it will deliver to students!  I think that most logical people would expect his school to produce the BEST RESULTS POSSIBLE compared to any other in the world.

Disclaimer

I have great respect for all teachers who give their all each and every day for their students.  I know that no curriculum is perfect and no measurement system is perfect.  Sometimes we may disagree about how and why things should be done in the field of "educating the children."  Any observations or critiques I make below are not intended to be aimed at teachers or students, but to the decisions that perhaps should be reconsidered in hindsight.

Utah's Data Gateway

The Utah State Board of Education provides a data gateway for citizens to examine school results.  You can run a report for a school and you will see the school's results in context of up to 19 other schools that are similar.  This "similarity comparison" is very insightful because it groups schools using a "general coefficient of similarity," taking into account about 11 variables contextualizing school attributes and student demographics.

Utah measures % Proficient (percent of students who are grade proficient in a subject) and Median Growth Percentile (MGP).  There is a video which explains MGP, but I will summarize.  Student Growth Percentile (SGP) measures each individual student's percentile compared to similar performers in the prior year.  MGP, however, measures how much students are improving from year to year as a group.  An MGP of 55 would mean that for the population considered, the median SGP was 55.  This would mean that the median SGP student improved better than 55% of his/her peers at the state level.  In short, MGP measures year to year improvement.  Utah's objective is that an SGP of 40 or higher is considered to have made sufficient growth.

2014/15 to 2017/18 Data

So let's look at the 2014-15 data for American Fork Junior High School.  Here you will see the Proficiency is 58% meaning 58% of students were grade level proficient in math.  The MGP measuring growth from the prior year was 53.  Meaning that when we take all the AFJHS students and sort their SGPs, the median one was 53.

If we fast forward to 2017-18, let's see those results.  You will note that there is not much change in proficiency from 2014-15 to 2017-18.  However, the MGP declined from 53 to 48.  Still OK, but declining.

Pulling in the two years in between, the 4 year trend in proficiency is: 58 - 60 - 56.4 - 57.6
The 4 year trend in MGP is: 53 - 52 - 48 - 48.

Pre 2014 Data

Now, when I saw this, I had some concerns.  I am estimating that AFJHS started using MVP around 2013.  After all, I would have expected Mr. Lemon to have a product nearly in hand before forming the Mathematics Vision Project, LLC.  Anyway, the other thing that happened in the 2012-2013 timeframe is "common core".  The data above doesn't go back before 2014.  However, there is another source which shows some older data.  This particular view seems to only be current through 2015-16.

As seen in the graph below, before Common Core, proficiency was on the rise from ~77% or so in 2010 up to around ~90% in 2013.  Then Common Core and/or MVP became the law of the land at AFJHS.  Most data I've seen for other schools shows a decline in scores once Common Core came into play.  So I will not focus so much on that because this report is not about Common Core.  It's about MVP.  And for all intents and purposes, it seems that the 4 years of data available at the original data gateway aligns to MVP years 2-5 at American Fork Junior High School.

Comparing & Contrast with Two Other Schools

To complete this analysis, I looked at two other schools.  The first was American Fork High School.  Approximately 100% of the students from AFJHS feed into the high school of the same name.  Additionally, about 50% of students from another junior high feed into the same AFHS.  This is illustrated as shown.   My thinking was that the MVP students leaving the junior high could also be measured in high school.  Even though we don't know the curriculum of the "other junior high school" about 2/3 of the math students at American Fork High School are from AFJHS.  So the data would be interesting if nothing else.

For the record, I reached out to teachers at the American Fork High School and asked if they used MVP.  They were very nice and responded promptly.  The answers included these comments:

• We do not use MVP. If we do, we use it sporadically, maybe once or twice each term
• We use our own curriculum and some teachers choose to insert an MVP lesson or two into our curriculum where they see necessary but it is not common
• From my brief interactions with it, we as a department saw many issues with it and haven’t ever pushed for it at our school.
• I personally use MVP very little.  At the high school level, I find tasks are a great tool for discovering some concepts, supplementing others, and some just require old fashioned direct instruction.  
• As a department at our high school, we are working to incorporate more tasks because most of us teachers use primarily direct instruction, and we feel that tasks could deepen understanding.

The second other school I looked at was Fairfield Junior High, which is in Kaysville, Utah, in the Davis County District.  Why Fairfield?  If you will refer back to the 2017-18 comparison graphic for AFJHS, you will see Fairfield at the top of the list.  Again, Fairfield is a school which is similar to AFJHS.  In fact, the website shows them as 91% similar.  I wondered how they fared over the prior 4 years, so I pulled that data too.

Let's see the results.  Let it soak in.

Observations

So here are some observations:

• As noted above, you see that American Fork Junior High is relatively flat on Proficiency, and down on Growth (MGP).  
• But look at the high school (where 2/3 of its students are from AFJHS).  Down...  Down... Down... on both Proficiency and Growth.  Just to be clear, we don't have a perfect correlation that says that MVP students at AFJHS are driving the declines at AFHS, but there seems to be some correlation based on the 2/3 of the high school students represented being from the MVP junior high.  If I was a parent of those AFJHS or AFHS students, I would certainly want to know. 
• At the high school, Proficiency has dropped 17.4 points from 53.8 to 36.4.  That is about a 1/3 drop and reflects devastating news to the students and parents affected.
• One might be tempted to think that if the high school would only adopt MVP, then the MVP kids coming from the junior high school would do OK.  But think about that logic.  The direct teaching style is what students will experience in college.  If they are not making the transition from junior high (discovery) to senior high (direct), then I shudder to think how they will handle math in college.
• Growth at this high school is down 16 points from 55 to 39, another drop of nearly 1/3.  The 39 is BELOW what Utah considers acceptable growth.  Is anyone there looking at these results and wondering, "W. T. H?!!"
• Now, we look at Fairfield.  Their proficiency has steadily increased over this same period from 57.5 to 63.7 which is 6.2 points, or a 10.8% increase.  Growth has dropped a tad from 65 to 60, but still the Growth results are outstanding and well over 50.

I'm not shy about reaching out to strangers, so I did.  I contacted teachers at Fairfield Junior High and wanted to find out what their secret to success was!  After all, isn't this one of the ways education leaders should select new ideas and curricula?  Find out what works!

I met with Lori Kalt there, and here's what she told me:

1. A/B block schedule, so we see our students every-other day for 80-minute class periods.
2. We defied the recommendation and push from our district to use their adopted curriculum (Carnegie) and we developed our own curriculum.  (By the way, if you compare Fairfield among all 26 junior high schools in their county - they are #2 in math proficiency for 2017-18.  Lori noted that the #1 school, Kaysville Jr. High, does not use the block schedule for math - so their math class-time is considerably longer.)
3. We employ lots of best practices in our curriculum which includes lots of direct instruction, skill-based practice for fluency (on skill-based concepts), whole-class activities and dialogue to help students grasp and understand conceptual things, analyzing mistakes, fine-tuning understandings using mini white boards, and daily short quizzes on each standard. 
4. We use standards based grading and students have multiple opportunities to show mastery on concepts - not unlimited opportunities but students can retake quizzes a few times
5. We make sure all students are fluent on foundation skills such as solving equations, constructing equations, graphing equations etc.

She also noted, 

We are currently receiving a LOT of pressure from our district to employ the use of tasks more frequently.   I work with an amazing group of math teachers and we are all like-minded and collaborate a LOT with each other.  We are hesitant to wholly employ the latest fad(s) in education which right now seems to be tasks, discovery, project-based learning, and personalized/online learning.

Conclusion

So there you have it.  Who would have thought that having human teachers create a curriculum from scratch could beat a bill of goods and services which has cost Wake County over $1.5M?

Who would have thought that teaching using a mixture of various crazy ideas such as:

• direct instruction, 
• skill-based practice for fluency (on skill-based concepts), 
• whole-class activities and dialogue to help students grasp and understand conceptual things, 
• analyzing mistakes, 
• fine-tuning understandings using mini white boards, and 
• daily short quizzes on each standard 

would have resulted in not only UP-TRENDING results, but clear leadership compared to similar schools?

Who would have thought that those results would be far superior to ground-zero of the latest and greatest trend in so-called innovative (yet-unproven) constructivist mathematics pedagogy?  

I tell you who: ME... and many other parents and teachers in Wake County and around the US and Canada who know better than to risk our students' futures on a tweet filled with feel-good hashtags, or on a chance meeting at a dog and pony show at a math conference.

You know what WCPSS should do NOW that they know the truth about MVP?

Fuggedabout it.  

The Butterfly Effect and Failed Change Management: An Open Letter to MVP Leaders in WCPSS

Dr. Tillery and Ms. Dupree,

Last night, as I'm sure you know, two teachers spoke favorably of MVP at the School Board meeting.  While I may disagree with them on the topic of MVP, I welcome the dialogue and support their right to be heard. 

Now that two teachers have gotten up and spoken in favor of MVP, I call on you as leaders of this curriculum rollout, to lift the gag order on teachers speaking out against MVP.  Please do not deny that you have told teachers repeatedly that they need to keep their comments to themselves.  This culture of intimidation in WCPSS against teachers is not only for public speaking but in private internal work sessions, where most good employers would provide a safe place for employees to give constructive feedback without fear of retribution.

Some of the comments I received over a month ago demonstrating this include:

• It’s sad that we have to choose between doing what is best for our kids and doing what is told by the county
• Basically “do this or else”.  I have teachers saying that they’ll only do this to pay their mortgage
• We were given a script to say at meet the teacher night in support of this. If we do not comply with supporting this, even if we are only acting in support of, we could easily be fired on the spot for insubordination. Which now a days is the only way to get fired.
• Teachers can’t speak out about this, even if you tell us it is confidential and/or anonymous. Most of us have to pay the bills so we cannot afford to lose our jobs- especially the young and single teachers. 
•  “We have to be on board, especially to parents”, or it’s our job. 
•  I am a single teacher and need my job- which I love when I get to do it.
• You all will not probably get very many responses and/or honest for fear of their job
• We were literally told we “will support and by-in to the mvp program.”
• Teachers were told point blank, you will use this or you will be put on an action plan
• They (WCPSS) monitor teachers like crazy. Like big brother in Wake County.

Is this the sort of organization WCPSS wants to be? 

Pardon me if I'm telling you something you know, but I feel I must share this having worked in corporate America for 30+ years and having led multiple huge strategic changes. There are whole consulting practices built around organizational change management.  But for this email, I'm going to try to be brief.

Here's how organizational change works (and I would consider curriculum change a great example of this). 

Please reference this article: 7 Organizational Change Management Best Practices

According that article:

1. Plan carefully.  I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, except for one point.  Around the country, the MVP rollouts we've seen have all been tiny compared to WCPSS.  So trying to scale this to 400+ teachers and 60+ schools over a 3 year period - having ZERO firsthand experience in MVP - was much too aggressive and risky. 
   
2. Define your governance.  I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this topic because I don't know enough about your internal governance to critique it.  However, the evidence that the implementation across the county was so irregular indicates weaknesses in governance.
   
3. Assign leadership roles.  I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this topic since I think you two are in charge of this.  Please correct me if I'm wrong. 
4. Keep stakeholders in the loop.  OK here's where the wheels start to fall off.  Parents and teachers are your key stakeholders.  And students too, but let's assume that if parents and teachers are on the same page, then students will fall in line.
1. Problem 1: During the infancy days of MVP in WCPSS when teachers were being trained, their internal questions and concerns were not addressed adequately.  One teacher said, "The MVP representatives came across as mostly dismissive of our concerns."  This type of start leaves many - I would argue a majority - of your stakeholders in the dust.  This cratered the program before it even started.
   
2. Problem 2: You conducted 4 community information sessions at schools on one side of the county but not the other.  I can speculate on whether this was accidental or intentional.  You know the truth.
   
3. Problem 3: Now that MVP is in full force and parents have complaints, you shut them down.  The GHHS information session on Feb 22, 2019 was the perfect example.  Well over 100 parents.  Angry.  Mad.  Wanting answers.  Instead of letting us vent and get everything on the table, you silenced the parents and only accepted questions via post-it notes or online.  THEN, you used teachers (some under duress I'm sure) to pitch the material pretending as though they believed in it.  THEN, you selected a few softball questions with prepared answers, and acted as though those were the questions all the angry parents were asking.  The handling of the whole session was HUUUUUGE MISTAKE!!!  - because we parents are NOT STUPID.  Don't forget you are in the Research Triangle Park, where probably over half that room has either Masters or PhD degrees in technical fields.  YOU CANNOT (redacted) THESE PARENTS, and that is exactly what you tried.  THAT session, Dr. Tillery and Ms. Dupree, is what has set the tone for what has transpired since.  DIVISION and ACRIMONY.  Angry emotional board speeches.  Posts and pleas on Facebook about the harm being done.  A successful student walkout at Green Hope.  A stifled student walkout at Wake Forest.  Signs.  Blogs.  Tweets.  Comments.  Public records requests.  People from around the country and world joining our cause to fight MVP.  Material objections filed from ~10 schools.  ALL OF THAT ESCALATED because starting on Feb 22, it was clear that WCPSS had no interest in keeping stakeholders in the loop.  That was a huge "butterfly effect" I will never forget.
   
4. Problem 4: The handling of the material objection complaints.  After citing a single word to radically change how our complaints are handled, Dr. McFarland cites that a committee will be formed which includes parents, teachers, and student representatives.  Yet he refuses to tell how those key members will be selected and how the committee will operate.  We smell a huge setup here.   
5. Problem 5: Continued ignoring of parents.  This is where we are now.  Board members feign ignorance about MVP and the problems we present on a bi-weekly basis OR they cite their credentials (again - to smart RTP professionals) and arrogantly respond to parents that "all is well."  Central is exercising extreme caution in responding to parent complaints, likely due to concern for a lawsuit or mucking up the carefully orchestrated dismissal of the material objections we are anticipating.
5. Find and support advocates.  There are no shortage of MVP advocates but they seem to speak and tweet only in the language of buzzwords.  Those advocates need to show us tangible results - not lofty research papers with no empirical evidence.
   
6. Constantly assess and review.  Another phrase for this is monitor and measure.  This is another area where I think you have failed miserably.  Otherwise, we wouldn't be where we are. 
   
1. Monitor: As far as I can tell from what we see in the public, the only monitoring you do is to sit in teachers' rooms and observe them.  I have heard countless stories that when you people from Central show up, the teachers change what they're doing and suddenly become MVP performers, going through the motions to appear to be following the recipe.  How much are you talking to students and finding out the truth about how its working?  If you've talked to fewer than 600 students about MVP (that's just 10 students per school) then YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH!
   
2. Measure: It seems the only measurements you have cared about are the now-infamous 1.5% and 1.9% end of year scores from 2017-18.  And presumably, there will be another set of end of year scores to look at  this November.  These end of year metrics are useless when we are 1.9 years into a program that is on the cusp of lawsuits and increases attendance at school board meetings by 50% every 2 weeks.  YOU NEED TO MEASURE ON A DAILY BASIS.  And that means POWERSCHOOL.  If I was in your position, I would be scouring PowerSchool for QUIZ and TEST data across the county.  You should be looking at historical trends on a per-student basis.  When you see former A students who WCPSS KNOWS are excellent students, and they are FAILING 4-5 weeks into MATH 2... YOU SHOULD JUMP ON THAT RIGHT AWAY instead of sitting back and focusing on damage control and narrative control.  This is what frustrated me last fall when my son's grades plummeted.  I almost accepted that it was HIM because he is merely an A-B-sometimes-C student.  But when I heard of friends and their straight A students failing math suddenly, I wondered why I was even having to bring this up.  This should be something WCPSS catches proactively IF IT WAS CURIOUS AT ALL about the efficacy of MVP and cared about the future doctors and engineers and leaders.  I'm not dismissing the lower performing students, but my point is, you should notice A to F changes more quickly than C to F changes.  You should have - and should NOW - be looking at grades on a daily basis and investigating that.  Likewise, where classes of MVP students are scoring high on tests, you should have curiosity about that too.  Are they really using MVP or is the teacher cunning enough to supplement and make sure the kids are learning, while flying under your MVP radar?  The truth hurts, and I don't think you want to know the truth to that question.
   
7. Address workforce concerns. This is similar to #4 about stakeholders, but deserves its own practice.  WCPSS has failed miserably here.  My understanding is that ~6 one-hour sessions are being planned for math teachers to come together and discuss MVP pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses.  If this were true and teachers were truly given the latitude to speak freely, AND given more than hour, this would be a wonderful step in the right direction.  However, the only way that meeting stays to 1 hour is if the teachers remain fearful to speak up.  So it's your choice.  As the link above states for this item, "It is critical that you keep the workforce aligned as you make changes within your organization. This requires a detailed understanding of how the change is affecting them and any worries and concerns they may have. You don’t want to get too far off course, but people’s needs must be addressed. If people are having a negative emotional impact they will never fully adapt."  That is right on.  You cannot keep the workforce aligned ONLY by intimidation and fear!  YOU HAVE TO address the real concerns teachers have!!!!
   

I personally believe the damage is too far done and MVP will never recover to the vision you originally intended.  But if you want to prove me wrong, there are 3 steps things you must do starting immediately:

1. Halt the further deployment of MVP Math 3 next year.
   
2. Lift the gag order on teachers, APOLOGIZE to them for THREATENING THEIR JOBS, and BEG THEM for their constructive feedback about MVP.  Listen to them and take action on the feedback.
   
3. Complete transparency with parents.  Hold large town hall meetings with verbal (not written) dialogue between parents and staff.  Let parents vent.  Answer our questions - ESPECIALLY the hard ones.  Parents will respect the process a lot more readily if they believe their concerns are being heard AND acted upon.
   

It's your choice: double-down or fess-up.

Sincerely,

Blain Dillard

What Comes First: The Relationship or the RFP? Did MVP Enjoy a One Year Competitive Advantage in WCPSS' 2016 Curriculum Selection Process?

Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) was introduced two years before it was chosen by the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) as the Math 1, 2, and 3 curriculum.

According to WCPSS’ FAQs about MVP, released March 1, 2019, the process to find a new high school curriculum began in the Fall of 2016 with a Request for Proposal (RFP) sent out to publishers and Open Educational Resources (OERs) to submit their curricula to WCPSS for review.

Interestingly enough, there was a Triangle High Five High School Math Summit at Green Hope High School July 15, 2015, which included Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) presentations.

The MVP class was described as follows:

Learn about how a task-based curriculum such as the Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) can engage students in rigorous problem solving activities, but also support skill and procedural fluency development. Get hands-on practice for facilitating the classroom discussion of a learning task. Learn how you can sequence tasks to support student learning using the Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction (CMI) framework. Let us show you how these pieces work together to support all of the many instructional demands placed on teachers. Watch student engagement sky-rocket!

The presenters were Beth Neill (Mary Elizabeth Neill) and Mary Rogers, both teachers for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. They also both had a side job as facilitators for MVP. Here is their PowerPoint presentation:

https://static.sched.com/hosted_files/trianglehighfivehighschoolm2015a/56/High%205%20Math%20Summit%20Presentation%20.pptx

Some other presenters and attendees at this 2015 Math Summit were: Anna Jackson, WCPSS; Sonia Dupree, WCPSS; LuAnn Malik, CHCCS.

Two years later, Mary Elizabeth Neil and Mary Rogers appeared as MVP Facilitators on an attachment signed on June 14, 2017 in the Professional Development Contract between WCPSS and MVP.

When Travis Lemon was presenting MVP Math to WCPSS earlier in 2017, he mentioned having two Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools’ (CHCCS) teachers with him and asked those in attendance to be sure to visit them that evening (as seen in the slide below). Were those two CHCCS’ teachers Mary Elizabeth Neill and Mary Rogers? It is not known if the two CHCSS teachers present were there as paid or volunteer endorsers.

Lemon also shared a graphic that showed significant College and Career Ready proficiency gains on the Mathematics 1 End of Course exam in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro City School District after their first year of MVP implementation; however, scores used for the pre-implementation year were incorrect, which inflated the improvement. Similarly, multi-year data for CHCC shows that the relative improvement in proficiency was no better than for (pre-MVP) WCPSS over the same span and less than relative improvement in NC statewide.

A folder with the various WCPSS MVP Purchase Orders and Contracts is available for further examination.

Triangle High Five, SAS, and The News and Observer

Let’s look closer at the Triangle High Five Initiative and how this relates to WCPSS’ plan to implement MVP Math in Wake County. It is described as a regional consortium of five public school districts in the Research Triangle area (Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Durham, Johnston, Orange and Wake County Public Schools). Five Triangle businesses, including SAS and the News and Observer, contributed $500k to start the Triangle High Five Initiative which was established to improve student outcomes and graduation rates.

Analytics Magazine noted that “SAS is a founder of the Triangle High Five Algebra Readiness Initiative, which helps mathematics teachers identify and engage in highly effective instructional practices as they address the disparities in mathematics achievement related to race and income.”

When looking at the 2015 Board of Directors some familiar names stand out: James Merrill, WCPSS Superintendent; Dale Burns, who was the Orange County Superintendent, but previously and later he was the Superintendent at WCPSS; Thomas Forcella, CHCCS Superintendent;

Additionally, there’s the Triangle High Five Math Collaborative, which includes Sonia Dupree, WCPSS; Michelle Tucker, WCPSS; Christina Zukowski, WCPSS; Drew Cook, WCPSS; LuAnn Malik, CHCCS.

Triangle High Five Math Happenings and Events

In April 2015, The Triangle High Five Math Collaborative wrote this letter to the Academic Review Standards Commision asking them to keep common core and integrated math:

https://www.ednc.org/2015/04/20/triangle-high-five-a-letter-to-the-academic-review-standards-commission/

In July 2015, the Triangle High Five Math Initiative held a Math Summit at Green Hope High School. https://trianglehighfivehighschoolm2015a.sched.com/. Two CHCSS teachers and MVP facilitators (Beth Neill and Mary Rogers) taught the class “Teach Like an MVP."

In August 2016, the Triangle High Five Math Collaborative held a Math Summit at the SAS World Headquarters: https://www.sas.com/en_us/events/16q1/math-summit-2016/district-contacts.html. CHCSS teachers and MVP facilitators (Beth Neill and Mary Rogers) taught the class “Week of Inspirational Math.” http://www.sas.com/images/email/c27977/secondary/MS_SEC_121_MRogersBNeil_WeekofInspirationalMath.compressed.pdf

In August 2017, The Triangle High Five Math Initiative held a math summit at NC State.  Robert Q. Berry delivered the keynote address over two sessions. He was the president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and associate professor in the University of Virginia Curry School of Education. His research focuses on equity issues in mathematics education, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of African American boys in school mathematics.https://ced.ncsu.edu/event/nc-state-triangle-region-high-five-math-summit-2017/ and https://ced.ncsu.edu/academics/professional-education/professional-development/ (professional development credit).

In September 2018, NC State held an Equity Day to “raise awareness of equity issues and motivate students to be socially active.” On the CHCSS website, there is an article about how The Triangle High Five Math Initiative has been dissolved but their “collective commitment to student success endures.” Cathy Moore, the current WCPSS Superintendent, was in attendance. https://www.chccs.org/site/Default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&PageID=1&ViewID=6446ee88-d30c-497e-9316-3f8874b3e108&FlexDataID=16865

Summary

CHCCS administrators were key players in influencing WCPSS’ decision to use MVP Math as the countywide math curriculum. To date, they still work together to write some of the MVP workbooks used in WCPSS math classes. All of these folks were vital in the curriculum decision making process. They were all part of a group that was making presentations about MVP Math a year before WCPSS began the process of finding a new math curriculum.

We were unable to find that any other publishers were invited to work with WCPSS ahead of the high school math curriculum selection process. In February 2017, the Wake County school system held community input sessions to get feedback on whether to implement McGraw-Hill Education’s “Core-Plus Mathematics” series or the Mathematics Vision Project MVP online materials. “We have confidence that all of the resources that you will be exposed today have very high standards,” said Brian Kingsley, assistant superintendent for academics, in a video being played at the input sessions. “There were several people who weren’t invited tonight because they didn’t meet the bar that this group of people that you are about to meet with did.” https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/wake-ed-blog/article134281324.html

The Triangle High Five Initiative appears to have dissolved in 2018. The link to the 2018 Triangle High Five NC State Summit is “not found.” Additionally, their twitter page, @TriHi5, hasn’t been active since 2017. Their website appears to be deleted. Did it dissolve because they were successful in their quest to keep Common Core and integrated math, address the disparities in mathematics achievement related to race and income, and ensure MVP Math was implemented in WCPSS and other districts?

The News and Observer contributed money to the Triangle High Five Initiative. Did this influence their coverage of MVP Math issues? The News and Observer has provided minimal coverage, reporting only the news that the public already sees. They have not investigated the MVP Math issues thoroughly and have not interviewed many of the parents speaking out against MVP Math or the students walking out to protest MVP and the right to a sound math education.

Timeline

2004 - Five Triangle businesses, including SAS and the News and Observer, contributed $500k to start the Triangle High Five Initiative which was initially established to improve student outcomes and graduation rates, and address the disparities in mathematics achievement related to race and income.

August 2014 - Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools implemented MVP Math.

April 2015 - Triangle High Five wrote a letter to the Academic Review Standards Commission asking to keep common core and integrated math.

July 2015 - Triangle High Five held a High School Math Summit at Green Hope High School. Two CHCSS teachers and MVP facilitators (Beth Neill and Mary Rogers) taught the class “Teach Like an MVP.”

Fall 2016 - RFP sent to publishers and OERs to submit their curricula to WCPSS for review.

February 2017 - Travis Lemon gave an MVP presentation to WCPSS and in the slides stated “Take the opportunity to visit with two Chapel Hill Math teachers while your are exploring the MVP materials. They are here tonight!”

February 2017 - WCPSS held Community Input Sessions at Sanderson, Rolesville, SE Raleigh, and Enloe for MVP Math and Core-Plus curriculums.  No sessions were held in the western part of the county.

May 2017 - Brian Kingsley presented MVP Math to the BOE at a work session.

June 2017 - MVP Math contract was approved at a WCPSS board meeting.

June 2017 - Beth Neill and Mary Rogers were listed as MVP Facilitators on a Professional Development Contract between WCPSS and MVP (specifically Travis Lemon signed).

August 2017 - Triangle High Five held a High School Math Summit at NC State with NCTM president elect.

August 2017 - Additional PD funds approved by WCPSS BOE.

August 2017 - WCPSS rolls out MVP curriculum for Math 1 countywide.

June 2018 - Multiple MVP Math contracts approved by WCPSS BOE.

August 2018 - WCPSS rolls out MVP curriculum for Math 2 and Math 3 (optional this year) countywide.

May 2019 - WCPSS and CHCSS collaborate on MVP Math workbooks used in Wake County.

Guest Author: Sandy Joiner

Another One Bites the Dust: MVP Success in Modesto, CA Debunked - "Real World Problem Solving" Sub-score Hardest Hit

"MVP will teach students to solve real world problems!  MVP is equity-based!" they monotonously repeat and tweet and repeat and tweet.  So many times that some actually believe it.

Summary

In this 2017 video, at the 1min 30sec mark, you will hear Ginger Johnson, Associate Superintendent Educational Services, talk about the gains experienced by the new integrated math program in the Modesto District of Stanislaus County, California, where MVP was adopted beginning in 2014 (3 years ahead of WCPSS):

"Educational Services is pleased to report we have seen steady gains in growing student success in Math.  This is evident in the increasing number of students taking advanced 4th year courses as well as students' performance on SBAC math assessment....  we have seen a small steady increase in math proficiency."

Oh, have you?

Background

One uniqueness of this school district is that over 50% of its students who take this assessment are Hispanic / Latino.  So if the MVP claims are true, we should see clear improvements in overall performance and this large subgroup.

California public school test assessment results are available from the CAASPP website.  They administer a state level math assessment in 11th grade.  Scores fall into 4 buckets: Standard Exceeded, Standard Met, Standard Nearly Met, and Standard Not Met.

In the charts below, I am showing results for California, Stanislaus County, and Modesto District, and then comparisons between the district vs. state and district vs. county. As the numbers show, there are gradual downturns in both the raw numbers and the comparison numbers.

District vs County & State - ALL

I like to compare data to a control group, such as a larger population in similar circumstances.  In California, my understanding is that about 2/3 of the state has adopted integrated math.  This is not necessarily MVP, but may explain the declines in state scores.

Sub-scores Not Good

So this is where it gets interesting.  The California test also captures, 3 math sub-scores which are evaluated on a below, near, above standard basis:

1. CONCEPTS & PROCEDURES: Applying mathematical concepts and procedures
2. PROBLEM SOLVING & MODELING/DATA ANALYSIS: Using appropriate tools and strategies to solve real world and mathematical problems
3. COMMUNICATING REASONING: Demonstrating ability to support mathematical conclusions

Now, if you have paid attention to MVP promotional materials, you will know that the big thing they brag about is "critical thinking" and "deeper learning" and the ability to "solve real world problems".   So, to me, that sounds like #2.

Let's look at the data:

Here's #1, CONCEPTS & PROCEDURES: Applying mathematical concepts and procedures

Here's #2, PROBLEM SOLVING & MODELING/DATA ANALYSIS: Using appropriate tools and strategies to solve real world and mathematical problems.

Here's #3, COMMUNICATING REASONING: Demonstrating ability to support mathematical conclusions.

So the silver lining in this - if you're an MVP zealot - is that in sub-score 3 "Communicating Reasoning", there was only a 1% increase in the number of students BELOW STANDARD!  Maybe all that group collaboration is paying off.  Hooray!!   

Meanwhile, the bread & butter of MVP - "deeper learning" and solving "real world problems" - saw an increase in BELOW STANDARD from 39% to nearly 51%!  (That's 1 more kid out of 10 who can't solve real world problems.  Darn!).  

Lagging behind, "Concepts and Procedures" continued its BELOW STANDARD climb from 56% to 62%.   

Hispanic / Latino Subgroup Has Similar Woes

District vs County & State - Hispanic / Latino Subgroup

Sub-scores for Hispanic / Latino Subgroup

So that's it for now.  Similar results as for the ALL data.

By the way, you can jump ahead to the 37min mark to hear from several teachers who speak about MVP.  There are a few fans, and that is expected because some get into it.  But the majority are against.  It's not for everyone as I explained in Myers-Briggs and Why MVP Doesn't Work at Scale.