EDM and the Math Achievement Gap in SPS

Recently I received a request about Everyday Math performance.

Seattle adopted EDM for use in 2007-2008.
One of the promises was that EDM would eliminate the Achievement Gap in Math for minorities.
This came in the form of the CAO drawing a line from a really large gap to a zero gap over a five year period ( or was it four? the SPS took this posting down so fast it was hard to get).

In the 2007-2008 adoption year teachers were professionally developed and all were required to teach math 75 minutes a day (which was a huge time increase and should have provided increased achievement becuase previously classes depending on teacher and school may have had from 40 to 60 minutes daily).

Here is what we find in the Seattle WASL results.
Kids spent considerably more class time on Math.
Teachers spent more time preparing for math.
The district dumped lots of dollars into math.
These were all increases from the previous year.

The WASL results at grade 4.
District 4th graders changes scored worse than the state 4th grade changes.
All 4th grade SPS change was 0.9% worst than state
Black 4th graders were 0.5% worse than the state
and Hispanic 4th graders were 5.6% worse than the state.
The WASL results are as follows:

for all 4th graders:
Statewide drop = 4.7% Seattle drop = 5.6%

for Black 4th graders
Statewide drop = 3.9% Seattle drop = 4.4%

for Hispanic 4th graders
Statewide drop = 4.4% Seattle drop = 10.0%

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Dr. Goodloe-Johnson says:

Every student achieving everyone held accountable.

You can read it here.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/08-09agendas/100108agenda/mathpresentation.pdf

---- I say talk is cheap.
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These results would have been expected. Had the administration or the school board cared to look at the data presented by the public prior to the EDM adoption, this wasteful expenditure could have been avoided.

The district currently has no plans to fix much of anything in Math k-8.

On with a high school math adoption.... is it a problem that k-8 most kids are not being prepared for high school math in Seattle? Apparently not.

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