Susan Edelman of the NY Post has written extensively about
Illustrative Math [IM], the curriculum mandated by DOE for NYC high schools for Algebra, as the first step in
their
$34 million initiative
NYC
Solves, in which they plan to standardize the teaching of math across all
schools.
According to the critiques of some math
teachers, as well as an apparent decline in test
scores in the 265 schools that piloted
the curriculum last year, IM Algebra and its implementation has been problematic, though the DOE
has resisted releasing comprehensive data. The curriculum has been shown to
omit some
key topics on the Math Algebra Regents exam.
Yet in June 2024, with
great fanfare, the Mayor’s
office announced that IM would be expanded to all high schools and more middle
schools, describing it as a “visionary shift [that] revolutionizes and
standardizes how math is taught in schools through high-quality, research-based
curricula implemented across districts with intensive educator training and
coaching.”
In July, I interviewed Bobson Wong, a math teacher at
Bayside High School on our radio show Talk out of School, where he
criticized the way in which DOE forbid teachers to use any of their own
problem sets with the IM curriculum, and told them they would be evaluated on
whether they kept to a very rigid schedule of component lessons and testing
modules, which could prevent them from addressing the actual learning needs of
their individual students.
More recently, Savvas Learning, a company which produces a
competing curriculum called enVision
Mathematics, sent a letter of protest to the NYC Comptroller, saying that “It appears that DOE did not follow any
procurement process before selecting Illustrative Mathematics”. The letter, posted below, was first reported
on by Politico and then written
about more extensively by Sue Edelman at the NY Post .
Savvas Learning went on: “While multiple curricula
companies would normally have had the opportunity to submit proposals, it
appears the DOE selected Illustrative Mathematics with no competing bids or
procurement process.”
The company also expressed concern that the “DOE is
actively considering whether to expand the rollout of Illustrative Mathematics
or other curricula in additional schools, many of which are K- 5 and middle
schools,” without proper competitive bidding or vetting of alternative
programs such as their own.
The reality is that the fix was in for Illustrative Math
from the start. The Gates Foundation has
funded
the development of IM by at least $25 million since 2012, a curriculum that
was designed by Bill McCallum, who co-led the development of the Common Core math
standards. The Common Core standards were
also funded by Gates Foundation to the tune of over $200 million.
The Gates Foundation then spent nearly a million dollars for
the group Educators for Excellence to push for the adoption of IM math. They have also provided a half million dollars to CenterPoint Education Solutions to develop digital assessments
aligned with IM, five million to the Achievement Network to create a digital
version of IM, and another $5 million to West Ed, to “understand the
efficacy of Illustrative Math at improving student math outcomes.”
Proof of that efficacy is elusive. WestEd appears to be still recruiting districts in a “nationwide”
study of IM, and when it is complete, one
will have to closely evaluate their conclusions, given how WestEd itself receives much of its support from Gates. When DOE officials were asked why the IM curriculum was chosen
by DOE, Sue wrote that “the DOE initially claimed
on its website that Illustrative Math had the “endorsement” of a respected
think tank, EdReports.”
Later the DOE was forced to remove this claim from their
website, as EdReports responded to Sue that
they do not endorse curriculums. DOE also claimed that the program “has undergone a formal review by a
committee of NYC educators” but refused to identify the members of that
committee or release their findings.
EdReports does indeed rate curriculums, though they describe this as providing "free reports that help you evaluate instructional materials because high-quality content
matters to teachers, to kids, and to our collective future." Unmentioned here is how they have received at
least $37.4 million in Gates grants for these reports, including $12 million since last April, and how their their ratings are not based on any actual
studies of student outcomes, but according to how closely these
programs adhere to the Common Core standards. The Common Core standards in turn was criticized by
many (including me) of having no backing in research, and have since been revised
by NY State and are now called the Next Generation Learning Standards or the P12
Learning Standards, (though how fundamentally different they are from the
Common Core is unclear.)
The Gates support of IM math doesn’t end there. In Oct. 2023, shortly after DOE introduced
the curriculum in 265 high schools, the NYC Fund for Public Schools received
$4.3 million from Gates "to
support the implementation of high-quality instructional materials and
practices for improving students' math experience and outcomes."
Though that grant was supposed to last 26 months, the Fund
for Public Schools, which is the mechanism by which DOE receives grants, got another
$4.5 million Gates grant in Nov. 2024 “to improve the capacity of its
district and school-based professional learning staff and scale the
implementation of math curricula and high-quality teaching across middle
schools.”
If you put it all together, that suggests that one way or
another, Gates has invested nearly $200 million in Illustrative Math or the standards on
which the curriculum was based, and this
funding goes a long way in explaining its adoption by DOE.
A similar story could be told about the three Literacy programs that the city has mandated schools implement in their NYC
Reads initiative: Wit & Wisdom, EL Education, and the most widely
adopted of the three, HMH Into Reading.
The latter in particular has been criticized for its rigidity,
for its time-consuming testing, and a lack of opportunity for students to read actual
books. To justify the selection of these
curriculums, again DOE cited their ratings on EdReports, and though there is a page
on the DOE website that summarizes a few research studies, those studies are
extremely weak.
For example, the study that supposedly shows the efficacy
of HMH Reading by Cobblestone
Applied Research & Evaluation, Inc., looked at a few hundred 3rd and 5th
grade students enrolled in a majority white, suburban school district. After a few months, there was a growth in their
reading scores,but the study neither
compared that growth to previous years, nor to any control group.
Literacy experts have criticized EdReports for giving high ratings to ELA curriculums that are bloated and have no proof of results. Hundreds of literacy specialists, superintendents and teachers wrote an open letter
to the governor of Massachusetts, criticizing the state’s approved list of “high quality” curricula for districts to adopt based on their EdReports ratings, adding that "Teachers need various strategies to do what is best for the students in front of them, and there is no proven curriculum that addresses the needs of every child."
One would think with all the rhetoric about “evidence-based”
research, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the Gates Foundation and
their influence with school districts in NYC and elsewhere given the amount of money
they are able to throw around, the Foundation could have sponsored at least a few randomized studies before
pushing any curriculum into hundreds of schools enrolling hundreds of thousands
of students. You would hope that DOE would also insist on more actual evidence, before its widespread adoption. Yet for whatever reason, those
in charge still apparently see entire districts as potential guinea pigs, and allow them to engage in large-scale experimentation, despite the risk that
these efforts may spectacularly fail, as they so often have in the past.
The letter to the NYC Comptroller from Sean P. Mulcahy, Senior VP and General Counsel of Saavas is below.
