COMMON CORE REPLACED? Officials say new Alabama standards not so different

In fact, it was an inability to prove the difference that led board member Wayne Reynolds, who represents part of Limestone County, to ultimately vote against the new standard. Reynolds has consistently said he wants to Alabama to move away from the Common Core curriculum because he didn’t think it was sufficient for Alabama’s students.

However, when presented with the latest alternative, he didn’t feel confident it would be any better.

“I just wanted to be convinced that it was absolutely better,” Reynolds said. “If you bring me a proposal and want me to adopt it, you have to prove yourself before I adopt it.”

The new standards change the grades at which students are introduced to certain math subjects. Students at Limestone County Schools, for example, will be able to start learning “accelerated mathematics” in seventh grade and geometry with data analysis in ninth grade.

LCS Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Brad Lewis said the plan is to begin this change next fall. He said another course could be added, and they would use the 2021-2022 school year to finish phasing in the new standards.

Under the standards, Lewis explained, students can now learn algebra over two years in middle school, be introduced to geometry a year earlier, then spend their final years of high school with algebra with statistics and/or a variety of advanced placement courses.

“We’re trying to provide more options for our seniors in math,” Lewis said. “Some of those options include finite mathematics, AP calculus, AP statistics, and of course students can take precalculus.”

The new course of study was designed by a committee of “veteran Alabama teachers, professors, administrators, business and industry leaders and other stakeholders,” according to a release from the Alabama State Department of Education. Total, there were more than 300 years of teaching experience in Alabama classrooms, the release said.

What they came up with includes a lot of what was seen in Common Core and in math classrooms across the country, such as focusing more on how to solve a problem instead of memorizing an answer. Lewis said the goal is to make sure students are not only scoring higher on math assessments compared to other states but can use what they learn in Alabama wherever they go for college or employment.

“We’ve taken the language of Common Core out of the math course of study, but it’s still based on the national standards of how to teach math that is taught in all of the states, because math is a universal language,” he said.

Gov. Kay Ivey, meanwhile, called it a course that “replaces, once and for all, Common Core with Alabama-designed standards.”

“These are Alabama standards created by Alabama teachers and will be a great starting point to ensuring our students will be proficient in each grade level,” Ivey said. “I am proud that the Alabama State Board of Education has taken this bold step to move our state forward. We have a ways to go, but today is a start in the right direction.”

Lewis said schools could also see the implementation of math coaches, similar to the reading coaches currently at schools. Starting in the 2021-2022 school year, Alabama third-graders will be required to read at a third-grade reading level in order to advance to the fourth grade. To achieve this, many elementary schools began using reading coaches, and Lewis said the future may hold a similar setup for math.

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