by Sugi Sorensen, Jan. 13, 2023
Revisions: Jan. 18, 2023 – Added language to reflect changes learned from LCHS staff presentation at the LCUSD Governing Board meting on Jan. 17, 2023. The AP Pre-Calculus class will not be offered at La Cañada High School until the 2024-25 school year.
At the La Cañada Unified School District (LCUSD) Governing Board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, Associate Superintendent Anais Wenn made the following statement during her regular report:
“After several years of implementation of Common Core State Standards-driven math pathways, which necessitated compaction (of) courses at the high school, the (LCHS) Math Department has proposed to adjust the pathway in order to allow each course a full year of instruction so that it is less stressful for the students and more manageable for the teachers. Their proposal entails some changes at the middle school advanced level courses and single course instruction at the high school with a new course — AP Precalculus in 11th grade. As per teachers’ proposal, current 8th graders and the high school students will continue to matriculate through the LC math courses until they graduate from high school. Beginning from next year’s 7th graders, students will start with the new pathway pending Board approval at the January meeting. The 7th grade teachers will teach the compacted course during the second semester of the school year using the Math In Focus curriculum to prepare their advanced-level math students for Algebra 1 instruction next school year. After the Governing Board’s approval at the next Board meeting, a parent meeting will be held at the high school to explain the upcoming changes, answer questions, and address any parental concerns.”
Anais Wenn, Dec. 13, 2022 (see video here)
Background
In order to understand the proposed changes and why they are being offered now, one has to understand the current LCHS 7/8 and 9-12 mathematics pathways and how they evolved to this point.
LCUSD as a California K-12 public school district is required to teach to the state’s academic content standards at a minimum. In mathematics and English language arts (ELA), LCUSD operates under the California Common Core State Standards, which the California State Board of Education adopted in 2010. The mathematics part of these are known as the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M.) LCUSD, in turn, adopted the CCSS-M in 2013 even though the math and ELA implementation frameworks were still being developed.
The CCSS-M represented a major change to the scope and sequence of mathematics instruction in K-12 public schools both in California and across the United States in the 42 states that also adopted some version of the Common Core at the time. While the CCSS-M math content standards were rather explicit in mapping out what knowledge and skills students should know in grades K through 8, they were less specific in the high school grades.
Prior to CCSS-M, California public schools operated under mathematics content standards adopted in 1998. Those standards, widely regarded by many math experts as among the best in the United States, required all California students to complete Algebra 1 by 8th grade. LCUSD taught Algebra 1 in 8th grade in both non-accelerated pathways:
The district offered two official pathways to students – the College Prep Pathway and the Advanced College Prep Pathway – though a small number of students who were advanced in mathematics took the unadvertised 1-yr Accelerated Pathway and completed Algebra 1 in 7th grade.
After the district adopted the CCSS-M content standards in 2013, LCUSD chose to follow the California Department of Education’s guidance to move Algebra 1 from 8th grade to 9th grade. This was a recommendation and not a requirement, though LCUSD interpreted it as a requirement. Understandably, this decision was regarded by many parents in LCUSD as ill-advised because many other high performing districts in California that had worked very hard to get all of their students taking and successfully completing Algebra 1 by 8th grade were unwilling to surrender those hard-earned gains. Those districts, in contrast to LCUSD, kept Algebra 1 in 8th grade. Most private schools, which are not bound by state curriculum standards, continue to teach Algebra 1 in 8th grade.
After adoption of the CCSS-M by the LCUSD Governing Board, the LCHS math department revised its pathways and math courses starting in 2014:
Figure 2: Present day, Common Core math pathways.
The above diagram represents the current official mathematics pathways and course names offered in LCUSD. The three arrows following LC Math 3 in the College Prep Pathway indicate that students may take any of the three courses shown (i.e. LC Math 4, Discrete Math, replaced by Financial Literacy in Fall 2019, or AP Statistics.) The cryptic course names were the result of another ill-advised decision made by the district at the same time to give the new CCSS-M aligned courses integrated pathway names to distinguish them from pre-Common Core traditional pathway math courses. This baffling decision and the confusion it continues to cause to this day is explained in detail in this 2018 article by La Cañada Math Parents (LCMP ) – “The Very Strange, Peculiar Case of the LCHS Math Pathways”. The green boxes and arrows in the above pathway diagram represent bridge courses that LCHS students can take in summer school to move up to the Advanced College Prep Pathway.
To understand what math topics are covered in the integrated pathway course names, the following decoder map will help:
Figure 3: Present-day Common Core math pathways with course contents revealed.
Note that the Advanced College Prep Pathway took the LC Math 4 (i.e. Pre-Calculus / Trigonometry) course and compacted it into the LC Math 1 Advanced, LC Math 2 Advanced, and LC Math 3 Advanced courses so that non-accelerated students could complete Calculus before completion of high school. It should also be noted that the La Cañada Flintridge Educational Foundation (LCFEF) summer school dropped the LC Math 4 course two years ago due to lack of student interest so the oft-made claim by district staff that all LCHS students have the opportunity to complete Calculus by graduation is no longer true.
Why Change Pathways Now?
Aside from the correcting the confusing course names, why are the math pathways changing now? LCMP’s understanding from district staff is that the LCHS math department teachers had numerous problems with the 4-to-3 compaction in the Advanced College Prep Pathway and are basically returning to the high school math course sequence used before the adoption of CCSS-M (see Figure 1 above), with the addition of a new Advanced Placement (AP) Precalculus course in the 2024-25 school year.
The present LC Math 1 Advanced and LC Math 2 Advanced courses were primarily designed by former LCHS teacher Brian McDermott, who left the district at the end of the 2017-18 school year. The advanced pathway courses do not match with one-year Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 courses taught in most other schools because each class contains one-third of Pre-Calculus in them. This made it difficult for new LCHS math teachers to teach LCHS advanced pathway courses since they were compacted and included an additional one-third’s year of material in an already jam-packed course syllabus. Additionally, some teachers and students felt topics in Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry were not given adequate coverage when compressed into other courses, and some topics were taught in LC Math 1 Advanced three years before Calculus, thus leaving students less prepared to succeed in AP Calculus courses.
The current pathways caused an additional problem because families wishing to take math courses outside of LCHS, which is allowable under California Education Code and LCUSD Administrative Regulation (AR) 6146.3, could not find math courses compatible with LCHS advanced pathway courses. In fact, the LCHS math department passed a department policy after the adoption of CCSS-M stating that, “Students taking math during the summer may not enroll in the advanced level of the next in sequence class.” This punitive policy prohibited students in the regular pathway from a key means of moving up into the advanced mathematics pathway.
Another problem with the current pathways is that the College Board announced the creation of a new AP Precalculus course to be unveiled in the 2023-24 school year. LCHS math teachers wanted to offer the new course at LCHS, but it only made sense for students in the lower College Prep Pathway given how Pre-Calculus is chopped up and stuffed into three other courses in the Advanced College Prep Pathway.
Searching for a Solution
Faced with these multiple problems, the LCHS math department came together in 2022 and proposed adjusting the LCHS 7/8 and 9-12 math pathways to make them more manageable for teachers, as well as less stressful for students in the Advanced College Prep Pathway. The first draft of their proposed changes, disclosed to select LCMP members in November 2022, is shown below:
The first obvious change was renaming the courses to descriptive names, though the Honors HS Algebra course is neither a traditional Algebra 1 nor an Algebra 2 course. The second major change was moving Geometry (and Honors Geometry) before Algebra. A third change was the addition of two new courses — Advanced Math Topics with Data Science in the College Prep Pathway and AP Pre-Calculus in both pathways. There were myriad issues with these proposed pathway changes so adjustments were made. The second draft of the proposed changes are shown below:
The above represents the pathways that will be presented by staff to the LCUSD Governing Board at its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. The College Prep Pathway is almost identical to the existing regular pathway, with the course names changed to their descriptive names and the one exception that students in the new College Prep Pathway will have the option to take AP Pre-Calculus senior year. This will reduce confusion about whether LCHS math courses are traditional pathway or integrated pathway courses, and allow greater flexibility for families taking approved courses for remediation or acceleration outside of LCUSD.
The Advanced College Prep Pathway is where the biggest changes will occur. Algebra 1 in the advanced pathway, called Honors Algebra 1, will now be offered in 8th grade instead of waiting until 9th grade for non-accelerated students. This puts LCUSD back on par with high performing public districts and private schools in California that continue to offer Algebra 1 in 8th grade.
The removal of the 4-to-3 compaction of math courses in the advanced pathway in high school will put less stress on both teachers and students. Compaction has been moved to the middle school, where the number of standards to be taught are fewer and the pace of instruction slower than in high school math courses. This will allow teachers a full year to explore all topics in each of the Honors Algebra 1, Honors Geometry and Honors Algebra 2 courses.
The biggest course change in the Advanced College Prep Pathway aside from the new AP Pre-Calculus course will be the Math 7 Advanced course. This course will now compact the present Math 7 Advanced and Math 8 Advanced courses into a single year. The new Math 7 Advanced course will use the Math In Focus Accelerated Course 2A & 2B textbooks introduced in 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:
Placement into the College Prep Pathway or the Advanced College Prep Pathway will be determined by a student’s 6th grade mathematics academic grade along with their 6th grade math teacher’s recommendation.
The addition of the College Board’s new AP Pre-Calculus course for LCHS students is excellent for multiple reasons. AP Pre-Calculus covers more topics and is more rigorous than LCHS’s current LC Math 4 course as it is understood, and will better prepare LCHS students for AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus BC the following year. It will also offer LCHS students one additional AP course to take, along with the additional GPA point for those looking for additional honors/AP opportunities.
Acceleration and Pathway Change Opportunities
The district will continue to offer acceleration opportunities in middle and high school for advanced students, as is required by the 2015 California Mathematics Placement Act (see LCUSD Board Policy 6152.1 and Administrative Regulation 6152.1 for details.) The middle school math placement exam administered annually to matriculating 6th graders under the new sequence will offer students the opportunity to skip the Math 7 Advanced course and take Honors Algebra 1 upon arrival at the middle school in 7th grade if they pass the exam. The 7th grade placement exam will reportedly be revised in the 2023-24 school year to reflect successful mastery of the new compressed Math 7 Advanced course. According to district staff, the middle school math placement exam offered in May/June 2023 and August 2023 will not change in scope from recent years.
In addition, students in the College Prep Pathway will have opportunities to move into the Advanced College Prep Pathway by either taking summer school bridge courses (the green boxes in Figure 5 above) or by taking WASC-accredited and LCUSD pre-approved courses at outside institutions.
Students who find Advanced College Prep Pathway courses overly difficult will continue to enjoy the opportunity to move down to the equivalent College Prep Pathway course, if room is available and the move is approved by school administration.
New Pathway Deployment
If the new pathways are approved at the Governing Board’s 01/17/23 Board meeting, students presently in grades 7 through 12 who are already enrolled in the current math courses will continue through the present pathways and courses until they graduate, with the exception that they will be allowed to take the new AP Pre-Calculus course starting in the 2024-25 school year if they meet the academic prerequisites. The current advanced pathway courses (i.e. LC Math 1 Adv, LC Math 2 Adv, and LC Math 3 Adv) will continue to be offered during a transition period of several years, while incoming 7th graders next year and beyond will be offered the new pathway courses. While this may seem confusing, it is the fairest way to accommodate students during a pathway change and was done when LCUSD started offering the present Common Core aligned math courses in 2014.
If the new pathways are approved, the district will begin purchasing instructional material for the compressed Math 7 Advanced and new AP Pre-Calculus courses and make a presentation to all district families in the near future.
There is one part of Anais Wenn’s original announcement of the pathway changes from Dec. 13, 2022 that has since been revised. She said on the 13th, “The 7th grade teachers will teach the compacted course during the second semester of the school year using the Math In Focus curriculum to prepare their advanced-level math students for Algebra 1 instruction next school year.” This is no longer true and the 7th grade math teachers are not attempting to compact the present Math 7 Advanced course this semester.
LCMP strongly supports these proposed math pathway changes and believes they correct an unfortunate mistake made by the district when it adopted the CCSS-M in 2013. Most importantly, students aiming for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) colleges who qualify for the Advanced College Prep Pathway will now be able to complete Algebra 1 by 8th grade, take an additional Advanced Placement course before they graduate, and will be competitive with peers in private schools and competitive public school districts that retained Algebra 1 in 8th grade. There are known challenges ahead (e.g. the new compressed Math 7 Advanced course will be difficult for many district students who have not supplemented in math outside of district schools,) and probably unforeseen challenges, but LCMP remains confident that LCUSD administration and teachers working together with LCUSD families will overcome them.