With MVP Year 2 in the Books in WCPSS - What Now?

Recap and Level Set

WCPSS curriculum administrators have successfully run out the clock on Year 2 of its MVP implementation.  Faced with February 20, 2019, news coverage and a throng of parents from Green Hope High School - and a few other schools with news-watching parents who showed up unexpectedly - leaders from Crossroads One put on a one-directional information session hoping to assuage parents chomping at the bit for answers about why their smart math students suddenly could no longer do their homework or pass a test.  

Since that meeting and through today, crisis management and narrative control has been the game plan.  Little substantive change has been made as WCPSS leadership doubled down on MVP, blaming teachers for implementation inconsistencies, students for not working hard enough, or parents for not understanding the need for the 21st Century critical thinking skills MVP promised to deliver.

Despite numerous reports provided by me and others about unimpressive or declining math scores in every single MVP reference we’ve located and investigated (examples: Alpine, Wake #1, Wake #2, Wake #3, Berkeley, Chapel Hill, and Modesto), and numerous passionate 3-minute parent speeches at Board of Education meetings, there has not been one single admission that the curriculum concept itself could possibly be at fault or have systemic weaknesses.  And not one single research- or evidence-based defense of the program has been presented, other than claiming a mastery of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 8 principles of math education. Granted, WCPSS admits there are some errors and typos in the workbooks, which some lucky teachers will be rewarded with summer employment to help correct. But other than that, there’s nothing wrong that a few bits of grade adjustments or additional teacher professional development can’t fix.

Highlight of the past 3 months: As a result of my analysis and debunking reports, having WCPSS contact MVP, LLC, and ask them to remove the tweet which falsely advertised MVP’s year 1 “successes” in Wake County.  Side benefit: MVP also removed the false Facebook advertisement about Chapel Hill’s successes. While neither of those will do any failing student in Wake County any good, it may possibly reduce the rapid spread of the MVP fever that seems to be catching across NC as other schools have or are considering adoption (Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford County, Johnston County, Transylvania County, to name a few).  

In April, approximately 20 parents from approximately 9 different schools filed formal complaints citing material objections related to MVP as it relates to ten NC or WCPSS policy violations.    After seemingly consulting their attorney(s), WCPSS promised a response to all on June 7, along with every other pending and additional public records requests since then. Since then, they’ve pretty much gone radio silent.  Tick. Tick. Tick.

I’m tempering my optimism AND pessimism about what might come from the June 7 response. Regardless, parents can either accept the results or appeal. So we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

If Only They Would Have Done This (or, It's Not Too Late to Do This!)

So here’s what WCPSS SHOULD have been doing in light of the MVP complaints that are more than a few isolated experiences:  

1. Decide whether current semester grades matter, and if they don’t, then state that and defend it.  

What this means is the following: One of the premises of MVP is that students will gain 21st Century critical thinking and math understanding skills, because the “old math” ways of “rote” memorization and teacher “lecturing from the chalkboard” are not working.  The implications are that the improvements promised by MVP may not manifest themselves until much later in high school or college, because it takes several years for the kinks to be worked out of a new curriculum. Therefore, if too much emphasis is placed on current semester grades, then we (parents) are being short-sighted and not seeing the long term play of MVP.  If current grades don’t matter, and a 3 letter grade drop should be expected for some students, then WCPSS needs to state those expectations clearly and strongly, AND provide evidence and research which will assure parents their students low grades now will be replaced with greater successes in school and career later.

2. If current grades DO matter and ARE a measure of tactical program success, then earnestly look at the data at a detailed level NOW.  

MVP is a radical change in the way teachers teach.  Picture a spectrum where, on one end, you have a teacher who is the perfect MVP implementer.  They are following MVP guidelines and scripts as precisely as the creator of MVP himself, regardless of whether this is their natural teaching style or not.  They may have to stifle some of their own creativity in order to follow the rigidity of MVP. They are implementing “with fidelity” and “being true to the curriculum” as described by WCPSS curriculum leaders to MVP teachers.  



On the other end of the spectrum is the teacher who is not using MVP as prescribed.  This teacher may be very creative and like to deliver math to their class using a variety of methods and styles, which may or may not include group work and facilitation.

In between freedom and fidelity sit probably the majority of teachers in WCPSS. They saw some potential with MVP and have tried it, but are seeing their students failing to grasp the math. So they are supplementing. They may still be using MVP some, but they are flying under the radar of the "MVP Police" at WCPSS who promise to reprimand teachers not following the program strictly.

I believe the implementation disparities across the county have lead to the results we have been seeing.  Where there are pockets of problems, we find strict implementation fidelity. Where there are happy students making A’s and B's in math like always, we find teachers who are teaching “under the radar” and not using MVP strictly.  They are supplementing, answering questions, and skipping many of the MVP tasks.

WCPSS needs to understand the correlation between performance results and MVP implementation fidelity.  I believe this can best be done by looking at grades first and testing two hypotheses:

1. Desirable results are correlated with implementing MVP with fidelity (one end of the spectrum)
2. Undesirable results are correlated with not implementing MVP or implementing MVP with low fidelity (other end of spectrum)

I will define desirable and undesirable results below.  

These are complementary hypotheses.  And they both are testing the opposite of what I believe to be the case due to the many anecdotes I hear about.  But this is what WCPSS wants to believe, and so they should test it and prove it to themselves and the public.

Here’s how I would do this.  Don’t wait for EOGs or EOCs. First of all, those results are produced annually and are not publicly available until around November for the prior school year.  Recently, those tests seem to be less useful for year to year comparisons of the publicly available NC DPI data due to the changes. For example, the numbers published by NC DPI for 2017 and 2018 Math 1 results had to be massaged with a non-published WCPSS algorithm in order to produce numbers to compare MVP year one results.  Additionally, NC is changing assessments again this year, which includes Math 1 and Math 3. Furthermore, it is not clear to me if Math 2 is part of any standardized test this year. Even if our standardized tests were perfect measures, the point is that we can’t wait for an annual checkup on whether MVP is working or not. There are enough students with significant problems NOW that demand a more timely micro-analysis of possible systematic issues.

Therefore, WCPSS should look at student by student performance mid-course on a regular basis and compare to prior math course grades.  They have this data collectively because parents individually have this data in PowerSchool.  

Take my son for example.  Prior to Math 2 Honors, his final grades were 78 (Math 7), 92 (Math 8), and 93 (Math 1).  If you weight those 15%, 35%, 50% (I made up this weighting because it makes sense), his recent math weighted average (RMWA) was 90.4.  Going into Math 2 Honors was a stretch for him, but his confidence in Math was rising, so we went for it. I would have expected him to possibly make a low B in Math 2 Honors or maybe a high C, given his recent math successes and the extra challenge of an honors course.  But no. He encountered a teacher who strictly followed MVP “with fidelity” and was “true to the curriculum.” Luke’s averages for his first 5 quizzes and tests were 57.8 and 60.6, which represented a 3.3 and 3.0 letter grade drop from his RMWA of 90.4! This is a HUGE decline and believe me, it raised red flags for us well before the 5th quiz or test.  This is a similar theme I’ve heard from other parents - multiple letter grade drops.

Desirable vs Undesirable Results

WCPSS should do this analysis throughout the semester.  In classes where there are numerous students who are falling more than 1.5 letter grades from their recent math course grades, a red flag (undesirable result) should be raised.  Likewise, in classes where a large majority of students are within +/- 0.5 letter grades of recent performance, a green flag (desirable result) should be raised. IN BOTH CASES, WCPSS should interview those students to understand how the teacher teachers class. Perhaps this could be done with a survey which checks criteria for "implementation fidelity" that MVP and WCPSS are expecting of teachers. For example, does the teacher start each class with a task, or does the teacher explain the math first? Does the teacher answer a question with a question and will they eventually given an answer? Does the teacher demonstrate one best practice example of how to do today's math problems? Do you feel equipped to do your homework at the end of class? Simply observing the teacher is not enough, because teachers know how to perform when someone is watching.

Obviously, when implementing this analysis, WCPSS’s data scientists should decide how to tweak those criteria to isolate what would best constitute desirable and undesirable performance.  I would have liked to think that this criteria existed already. I would have thought that if a school system saw clusters of students suddenly dropping 3+ letter grades, they would have proactively investigated this, but I am not aware of this happening.

Now, the other factors that have to be considered are the extenuating circumstances.  Are the grades being adjusted or fluffed with multiple mastery opportunities or group-testing?  How much tutoring is used by the students? Are there changes to the students which would explain the performance?

This analysis is how WCPSS can judge the magnitude of what we parents are seeing and hearing from others, OR if 20 students in all of Wake County are truly the only ones with isolated MVP problems.  

In other words, is the 2-part hypothesis true or false?

If the hypotheses are true, then the fix might be more professional development for teachers where there are MVP problems.  But data from the ground-zero home of MVP, American Fork Junior High School would indicate that the hypotheses are false.

So if current grades do matter, and there is a systemic problem correlating to MVP implementation fidelity, then...

3. It’s time to face facts AND common sense and cut bait.  

The facts are based on the analysis done above plus the empirical evidence from other districts that are 3+ years into MVP with no improvements to show.  Examples noted above in introduction.

The common sense part is this: Before WCPSS went to block scheduling, students spent about 160 hours per year in math class (6 periods in one day all year long).  With block scheduling, this time is reduced to about 120 hours per semester for a math class (4 periods in one day each semester). So effectively, the change to block scheduling was a reduction by 25% in class time for a course.  

With MVP, class time is spent doing the MVP task-based activities.  No one argues that some of the MVP problems are good ones that should be understood and worked by students.  But, how much time should be spent - in cacophonous group work - “grappling” with a problem BEFORE learning the fundamental math required to ultimately solve the problem, waiting for the 0-2 strong kids in the group to partially figure it out, while the other 2-4 students wait?  One third of class time (40 hours per course)? One half (60 hours per course)?

When we take yet another portion of precious math class time and devote it to an activity that may or may not yield benefit for only some of the students, logic would indicate that is not a good decision.  Every student. Every day. Ask your child about their MVP math class experience, and you'll hear that some students - they are humans after all - get engaged more than others. It's just the way life is. The teacher cannot individually play the information hide & seek math facilitation game with 30-35 students to ensure every student every day "gets it." It's just not possible.

Every minute counts when we’ve already cut math course time by 40 hours.  With only 120 hours in class pre-MVP allotted for teachers to teach the material the best way they know how, how can turning over even a small portion of that time to a student-led “grappling” and “discovery” exercise be of benefit to all students?  It can’t.  

The sooner WCPSS and others cross that bridge and admit it, the better.  Cut bait. What does it look like to cut bait? I see there are 2 options:

1. Allow teachers the flexibility to use MVP problems and tasks as they deem appropriate, OR
2. Drop MVP completely and pursue another curriculum

Regardless of which option, WCPSS math teachers need curriculum resources to teach.  I, and others, believe there is a win-win opportunity here as described next.

4. Develop WCPSS teacher-authored curriculum resources.  

By my estimation, WCPSS must have 400-600 math teachers teaching MVP.  Every school and every teacher had curriculum resources they used to teach Math 1 - 2 - 3 before MVP.  Those resources are still available on Google drives or on teacher laptops.  So the resources for an excellent perfectly-matched-to-standards curriculum exist in aggregate across the county.  With some level of adult coordination, WCPSS could invest money otherwise spent on MVP training and invest in making robust system-wide curriculum resources.

This investment could be in the form of tooling (software) or labor (paying teachers extra to contribute to curriculum resource bank).  Proper project management and tooling could result in:

• A database of high quality class lessons which map to state standards and made available to students (and parents) for use after class
• A math problem bank (some with and some without worked examples) which could be used by teachers or students for class work, homework, quizzes, and tests.  
• Problems could be mapped to lessons (which are mapped to standards). 
• Problems could be rated for difficulty which would allow teachers to build assignments and assessments appropriate for scaffolding. 
• This could include MVP problems which are utilized during the appropriate time at the teacher’s discretion.
• Continued refinement year after year.
• Teachers who have contributed to the project can be rewarded with recognition and/or additional pay, depending on contribution.
• Teachers could use their own creativity to deliver material using methods best suited for their style and students’ needs.

Why is this so difficult to envision?  

Again, we’re more than halfway there because this solution already exists in aggregate across the county.  We just need to apply a level of organization to it. This would result in a tailored solution that is on the mark with state standards AND teacher buy-in would be high AND teacher satisfaction could be improved.  The results:

• Truly high quality resources not riddled with errors an d confusion like MVP materials
• Better performing students
• Increased teacher satisfaction
• ALL teachers have access to ALL resource for ALL students
• Problem difficulty ratings ensures ALL students are met where they are and can be challenged to go higher
• Assessments will be fair because they will only contain problems within realm of what is expected
• Parents will have resources (notes + examples) to help students if needed

In conclusion, I implore our WCPSS leaders, including board members, to set aside their hashtags and preconceived biases favoring MVP as the solution to achieving mathematics utopia, AND LOOK AT THE FACTS and USE COMMON SENSE about what is happening. If the response to the material objection does not indicate that substantive change is coming regarding MVP, I will expect to see protest escalate this fall as a new batch of students enter Math 1 at all schools, and Math 3 at the schools completing the rollout.

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

Ready? Set? NO! The Story of Miranda and Neha - MVP and Your GPA

Legal Disclaimer

This blog article is a parody which tells the story of two fictional characters.  In this fictional story, the characters have experiences which I believe are representative of numerous anecdotes and concerns shared by parents.

If you've read articles on this blog, you've no doubt read about impacts MVP is having on some students' confidence in math, impacts on wallets as "parents of means" hire tutors or buy other resources, and most importantly, impact on learning as many students in MVP Heavy classes continue to fail assessments despite considerable at-home efforts.

At the end of the day (or semester in this case), what will be left as a reminder of your child's MVP experience will be grades on their transcript.  Do grades really matter?  Educators will answer that question different ways depending on the circumstances.  But let's be honest.  Most parents who care enough about their kids' math class to get on a Facebook group and post and comment, probably are parents who are expecting their kids to go to college.  And colleges care about grades and transcripts, including GPA and class rank.  They really do.  Volunteer service and sports are great, too.  But grades matter.

Ready?

So let's do an MVP exercise.  Miranda and Neha are best friends and have been going to school together since 3rd grade.  They are both are great at science and math and have straight A's through 7th grade.  Miranda hopes to be a doctor after studying Chemical Engineering like her mother.  Neha is interested in fighting climate change and hopes to become a Data and Computer Scientist.  They hope to go college together and be roommates!

Set?

Both Miranda and Neha sign up for Math 1 Honors in 8th grade.  Miranda gets a teacher who follows the MVP math program lightly, minimizing the class discovery exercises, and using her old Math 1 notes to make sure the students understand the math each day.  Neha gets a different teacher who is "being true to the curriculum."  Neha can't hang out with Miranda much any more because she is meeting with her tutor after school 4 days a week and on Sunday.

Miranda earns an A in her Math 1 Honors class, but despite all the extra help, Neha earns a D.  Neha is so discouraged because she thought she was a great math student.  She used to beat Miranda on every test in 6th and 7th grade!  Now Neha is discouraged and decides it would be safer to take Math 2 as an Academic class.  Miranda continues with Math 2 Honors.  As luck would have it, Miranda and Neha each are again placed into MVP Math 2 classes taught with differing levels of MVP intensity.   Miranda makes a B this time, and Neha improves to a C.

Miranda finishes out high school alternating A and B all the way through AP Calculus and AP Stats.  Neha eventually gets back to a B in MVP Math 3 and 4 - both at the Academic level.  Deciding instead to focus on another field of study, Neha takes 3 elective Academic courses instead of Calculus and Statistics, earning 2 A's and a B.

NO!

The tale of two students.  Both equally excellent in math when 8th grade started.  On two different paths by the time high school is over.  Using the math we learned today, we can do some simple calculations and determine the GPA impact to Neha as compared to Miranda, based only on these 7 courses, is -0.297.  Let's round that to -0.3 using what we learned in Unit 1.

Let's say Miranda and Neha make the same grades in every other class, and Miranda ends up with a 4.5 GPA and ranked 19th in her class.  Neha, having devolved from a "math whiz" to a "math avoider," ends up with a 4.2 GPA and is ranked 134th.  While Neha's 4.2 GPA is still excellent, it is unlikely these two young ladies will be roommates in the same college.

Try the MVP GPA Impact Calculator for yourself.

Conclusion

Well, booo hooo.  Not going to get a lot of sympathy from some people - I get that.  But is it really fair that two equally intelligent students have their grades and aspirations impacted because of the luck of the draw related to teacher assignment combined with an unproven experimental curriculum and teaching method that INTENTIONALLY WITHHOLDS a math education from Neha, BY DESIGN?   It could just as well be a 3.5 versus 3.2 GPA - but the consequences are similar.  Grades matter and GPA matters.

Granted, this scenario may be an extreme case.  Or is it?

Author: Blain Dillard

Guest Author: Berkeley Parent Advocate Shares MVP Experiences

Wake parents are partnering with Berkeley parents as well as those from Anacortes, Washington, to learn about their experiences in advocating for math education for their students impacted by MVP.  In this article, Berkeley High School (California) parent advocate and Wake MVP Parent guest author Donna Storey tells the history of BHS's MVP journey.  

Cliff Notes Version

1. Berkeley High School implemented MVP beginning in 2015 hoping to close its long standing achievement gap.   
2. Students frustrated and confused, losing confidence in math.  School system blames children. 
3. School system attempts to hide data, but is eventually required to release data by a California Public Records Act request.
4. D/F grade rates increase, even bolstered by 54% of surveyed students receiving private tutoring.
5. Parents created support websites and tutoring programs.

Main Article

In the fall of 2015, the Berkeley High School math department launched a brand-new Common-Core-aligned curriculum for the class of 2019: Mathematics Vision Project  Many hoped this new approach to teaching math would help close the long-standing achievement gap at the school.

I was serving as the secretary of the Academic Choice Advisory Council, a sort of PTA for Berkeley High’s largest “small learning community.” As early as the fall of 2015, parents were coming to our monthly meetings to express concern that their children were struggling with the new curriculum. With no textbook and little guidance from the teachers, students found homework confusing and frustrating. Students who had once excelled in and loved math lost confidence in their abilities. During information nights, math department representatives shared very little information about the new curriculum, but merely assured parents that everything was on track and this new approach would end up being a great improvement. Many parents and students felt equally confused in the second year of MVP, but most assumed it must be their child’s personal issue.

By the winter of 2018, the class of 2019 was now taking the junior-year MVP class called Math 3. The D/F rate for these students was reportedly at an all-time high. Although my children had both graduated from Berkeley High, I heard stories from parents of juniors that made me very concerned.

I requested the D/F rates from the Berkeley Unified School District by means of the California Public Records Act and received the following information, updated March 7, 2019:

Aggregate D/F Rate for MVP Math Courses at Berkeley High by Semester

Course	2016-17 (S2)	2017-18 (S1)	2017-2018 (S2)	2018-19 (S1)
Math 1	28.4%	25.4%	28%	26.3%
Math 2	25.2%	26.7%	26.9%	23.8%
Math 3	not yet offered	18.1%	20.7%	6%**

A request for more detailed math performance data in the years before MVP was denied by the Berkeley Unified School District, but the “Update on Common Core Mathematics” (item #12.2) presented to the Superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District on March 22, 2017 contained the following data, which confirms that there has been a notable increase in D/F rates since the introduction of MVP in the 2015-2016 school year:

TABLE 1: D/F Rates for all 9^th grade math students semester 1 (Algebra I or Geometry)

Academic Year           All students

2013-2014                15%

2014-2015                17%

TABLE 2: Math 1 D/F rates over 1.5 years (this does not include Advanced Math 1 or Math 1X) [first year of MVP at Berkeley High School]

Term                           All students

Sem 1 15/16                         16.7%

Sem 2 15/16                         19.4%

Teachers and administrators continued to reassure parents all was well and they were handling any issues behind the scenes. Students of means relied on private tutors (54% of the 132 parents who took a community survey reported they’d hired a private tutor). Other concerned parents came together to create support websites and encourage the math department to make videos to explain concepts to students, although teachers did not emphasize the availability of this material. A group of parents started a free Sunday afternoon tutoring program to supplement after-school tutoring by teachers at Berkeley High. The Berkeley Unified School District hired a math coordinator to oversee math instruction in the Universal Ninth Grade program beginning with the class of 2022 to provide students with more support. We are also requesting that the District provide an update to the 2017 report to give the community vital information on student performance.

MVP is now in its fourth year and many students and parents at Berkeley High are still struggling and feel their challenges are not being taken seriously. When a parent group from Wake County, North Carolina reached out to Berkeley High Parent Advocate, the issues they were experiencing with the launch of MVP were sadly familiar: student frustration and confusion, many losing confidence in math; a lack of data on student performance so that the impact of MVP was hidden from the community; and assurances that MVP was a cutting-edge curriculum and any problem was the fault of students.

I hope that students and families in all school districts who are using MVP can connect, share their stories, and work to open a dialogue with MVP and their school districts. MVP is a new curriculum, and no matter how carefully designed, the reality of student experiences must be taken into account in order to best serve our kids. For example, EdReports found that MVP did not meet expectations for differentiated instruction for diverse learners and only partially meets expectations for gathering information about students’ prior knowledge and providing guidance for remediation. We must not take MVP as a perfect program that cannot be changed or challenged, but rather as an experimental approach that will benefit from student feedback and careful monitoring by teachers and administrators. Indeed, one of the unfortunate side-effects of the lack of transparency and dialogue is that teachers and administrators also suffer unnecessary stress when they take a defensive rather than collaborative position in relation to the community.

I sincerely hope we can work together to support math success for all of our students.

**I will be encouraging the community to ask for more information on the dramatic decrease in D/F rates in Math 3. We do know that the Math 3 staff was changed this year, and two teachers known to be especially demanding were reassigned to other courses in 2018-2019.

Donna Storey

Berkeley High Parent Advocate

Myers-Briggs and Why MVP Doesn't Work at Scale

I am no professional educator like the elite experts who created and/or selected this Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) curriculum for my school district - Wake County Public School System - but I have been through 6 years of undergrad and grad school, and countless hours of corporate training in my 30+ year career.  I even taught a few classes myself at the college and professional level.  So I'm no stranger to the education process, and like most parents, I've got some common sense, too.

Cliff Notes Version

Setting aside the debates about "integrated math vs. sequential math curricula" and "procedural fluency vs. conceptual learning," I think the crux of the problem with MVP in WCPSS can be explained with these 3 observations about education mechanics:

1. Facilitation as a teaching style is very difficult to do well, especially for math personality types
2. Facilitated discovery as a learning style does not match all students' personality types
3. Facilitation as a primary teaching style is not a good fit for teaching math

The Gory Details

Introduction to Facilitation

This may be oversimplifying it, but I think teachers are called to their field because 1) they care for children and 2) they have a knack for explaining things.  With MVP, the approach to pedagogy (the study of how knowledge and skills are exchanged in an educational context) has shifted from direct TEACHING to more FACILITATION.  With facilitation, EXPLAINING THINGS is removed from the equation.  The job of the facilitator is not to explain things, but to coerce and manipulate students into EXPLAINING THINGS or figuring things out for themselves.  This is especially challenging in MATH, where such a large component of MATH education involves explaining and understanding concepts never before encountered.

Facilitation not a Good Fit for All Teachers

I've been a student of excellent facilitation and I've tried to do it myself.  It is hard.  It requires psychology and a keen sense of observation of human interactions.  It is not a natural method for most people, and probably more difficult for those of us who are among the Sensing-Thinking-Judging personality types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test - you know, like many scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.  On the other hand, facilitation as a profession may be better suited for people who are on the Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving quadrants of Myers-Briggs.  These are just generalities, but corporations across America have used MBTI for years to help over 50 million employees do their jobs better.

Note: The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is an introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions.  I expect that many parents in the Triangle area are familiar with MBTI through professional training in their jobs.    

Facilitation is not a skill set that can be taught in a 4 day (or 4 month) class to math teachers who, in general, have personalities which are not well-suited to lead teenagers in a pure facilitation experience 5 days a week.   I concede there may be a few MVP teachers around Wake County and other parts of the US who can do it satisfactorily 5 days a week, but in general, pure facilitation of MATH is NOT a transformation that is scalable to all math teachers.

Additionally, the learning styles of students which work best in that type model are unique to some students. How many students will continue to ask questions when the response from the teacher is another question, followed by another question, followed by another question? Only some. Others will pipe down and stop asking questions. My son did. So I will never say that MVP doesn't work for ANY students and ANY teachers. I think there are some combinations that might work. I'm saying that AT SCALE, and for ALL, if done AS INTENDED and AS DESIGNED - IT CANNOT WORK. And that is why we have intense pockets of complaints and random pockets of contentment around the county.

Facilitation & Discovery Learning not a Good Fit for All Students

Likewise, facilitation is not a one-size-fits-all method that works for all students.  HOW we learn is a function of the personality type of the student.  Forcing teachers and students into a teaching/learning model based largely on teacher facilitation and student discovery goes against the personality preferences of many teachers AND many students. This is neither EQUITY nor a recognition of the DIVERSITY of teaching/learning preferences.

For most teachers who at heart just want to use his or her tools (which may or may not include facilitation) to educate their students, it is a square peg in a round hole.  Forcing teachers into this model who are not so predisposed to it will inevitably lead to career dissatisfaction and attrition.  Teacher training is not the problem.  And student learning is not the problem.

Facilitating Math is an Oxymoron

Next, let's consider if facilitating the subject of mathematics even makes sense.  According to the Journal of Extension, "Although teaching and facilitating are not mutually exclusive processes, each method has a set of characteristics that distinguishes it from the other."   Look at this chart comparing teaching and facilitating, and think through each item with MATH in mind.  I've highlighted some of the key differences particularly relevant to math.  I'm not down on facilitation as a practice.  It can be an excellent way to engage a group to solve a problem that has issues and perspectives and politics and points of view and where the answer can be "it depends".  Is that the best model for teaching and learning MATH, where the answer is either right or wrong?  NO!  Indeed, there may be more than one way to solve every math problem.  Do we want to sacrifice learning at least one way that works at the expense of having a facilitated discussion about all the possible alternatives the student group can come up with?  Definitely NOT!  Can students learn significant mathematical concepts and skills from facilitation?  UNLIKELY!  Can students discover processes and concepts for which they do not have the prerequisite skills, like Pascal and Newton and Euclid did?  DOUBTFUL!  It's not to say that these students will never reach such platitudes, but we're in high school math.  We need the math teacher - not the students - to teach math.

MVP apologists tout these methods as THE solution to all that ails students in their future higher education and workforce selves.   Yet, in college, it is highly unlikely you would encounter such teaching methods until senior or graduate level courses, if ever.  And certainly it is unlikely that would be in a class, the purpose of which is to establish basic foundations of quantitative subjects like MATH 1, 2, and 3!  Where you see pure facilitated instruction is in the social sciences or professional continuing education training.  Facilitation requires students who are mature enough to be facilitated and a subject suitable for debate, alternatives, discussion, opinion, flexibility, grey areas, and emotion.  Sensing-Thinking-Judging personality types + facilitating + teen agers + high school math = an equation that does not add up to anything but frustration for both teacher and student.

Too Many Square Pegs and Round Holes to Scale

All of the above doesn't mean that I am against a math teacher using facilitation skills to engage a class during a lesson.  What I am against is a prescriptive approach where teachers who are ill-equipped to be facilitators are mandated to teach a subject which is ill-fitted for facilitation to students whose personalities may or may not be receptive to such a style.  Otherwise, what we have is a square peg IN a round hole teaching about a square peg WITH a round hole to a square peg IN a round hole.  That is why MVP cannot scale as is, and therefore, since WCPSS has already scaled it, that is why it is failing.

Author: Blain Dillard