Math-class changes add up to success

Dave Carlson’s head has been a little chilly this month.

Some Whitefish High School students stared when their principal showed up to school one day with a shaved head. But members of the junior class grinned at one another. They knew Carlson was bald because of a promise he had made them last spring.

Carlson had called the class, then sophomores, together in March to talk to them about the Criterion Referenced Test they were about to take. It wasn’t the first time they’d taken it; in Montana, students take the test every year in grades three through eight.

Their scores determine whether they — and their school districts — make Adequate Yearly Progress, the annual benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

That makes it one of the most important tests they take, Carlson explained to them. “Don’t blow it off; take it serious. There’s a lot riding on this.”

Then he made a half-joking offer: “If you guys are able to increase our math scores and we make AYP, I will shave my head.”

Carlson laughed when he told the story and remembered how some teachers raised their eyebrows at him. But he figured the additional incentive was worth a shot.

“It was stick a carrot in front of a horse and see if they nibble on it,” he said. “We had not done well” on the test.

That changed this fall when the state released the results of the test. Eighty percent of last year’s Whitefish High sophomores achieved proficiency on the math test — well above the target 68 percent.

So Carlson made good on his promise, but he is quick to call his bald head a dog-and-pony show.

The real reason scores have improved — and why Carlson is hopeful scores will continue to improve — is because of changes in the way Whitefish teaches math.

Those changes included a new curriculum that allowed teachers to work with students who had “gaps and spaces in their backgrounds,” curriculum director Bobbie Barrett said. The school added computer-assisted learning time to help close some of those gaps in basic math skills, she said.

School officials also pored over math scores and data to determine how each student was doing.

“We looked at the kids’ individual math scores ... where they should be based on their scores,” Carlson said. “Then we put them in classes — and created classes — specifically geared toward the level of math they were at.”

Algebra was the subject that saw the greatest revision. That, Barrett said, is where the greatest need is.

“Algebra 1 is the level class that hangs them up the most,” she said.

Part of that revision included adding a second algebra course, Algebra 1B, to give some students additional help grasping concepts.

That class was the brainchild of Mark Casazza, who had used problem-solving and competition to improve students’ math skills in other classes. He asked if he could start a class that didn’t have to follow a prescribed curriculum and could instead work at whatever pace the students needed.

His class is an alternative to the historical ways schools have tried to help struggling students, Casazza said.

“Lots of times when a kid’s behind, traditionally they get a review worksheet,” he said.

“But if it didn’t work for the first eight years, it’s probably not going to work when the kid’s a freshman in high school.”

There is plenty of review in Casazza’s class, but not on worksheets.

Instead, Casazza puts review problems on the overhead projector and selects students to go to the board and work out the problems in front of the class, explaining their work as they go.

If students can teach the problem to the class, “they can internalize it and really understand,” Casazza explained.

He also encourages students’ natural competitive drives. He breaks students into teams that race to solve problems on the board.

“Even if a kid doesn’t love math, they love competition. They love getting the problem right for their team,” Casazza said.

Sixteen-year-old Kelsey McFadden, a sophomore, took the class last year. Initially, the prospect of two math classes a day wasn’t appealing, she said.

“At first we were all like, two math classes a day? This is going to be so hard,” she said.

But students being allowed to move at their own pace and not being bound by a prescribed curriculum made Casazza’s course a welcome change from other math classes. That is one of Casazza’s favorite things about the class, too.

“What’s real nice is I don’t have to move on until they really understand the material,” he said. “It’s not like I have to get through Chapter 12 with these kids. I can go back and fill in some holes.”

Filling in those holes helped McFadden do well in math last year.

“I’ve always really liked math, but I wasn’t the A/B girl. I was more the C/B girl,” she said. “After that class, I got straight A’s the whole year.”

Many of her classmates saw improved grades as well. And after all the Algebra 1 classes began taking tests, any stigma that might have come with being in Casazza’s class disappeared.

“At first we called ourselves the math class that needs more help, but then we were the ones that were getting the higher test percentages,” McFadden said.

Her class will take the Criterion Referenced Test this spring. The federal requirements they have to meet are more stringent than last year’s benchmarks; 84 percent of Whitefish’s sophomores will have to be proficient in math, Carlson said.

He said he doesn’t have plans to offer another shaved-head incentive — or any other motivation.

“No tattoos, no bungee jumping,” he said, laughing. “I’d like to have the same assembly and talk about what we’ve done this year — make it so the kids kind of feel they have their own destiny.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.