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Teachers Key to Reversing High Failure Rate in Math

By Rick DuFour

We received a query from a high school principal about the failure rate in algebra in his school. At the end of the first quarter, 44 percent of students were receiving grades of D or F. At the end of the first semester, the rate had increased to 55 percent. When the administration met with the teachers to offer support, teachers took the following positions:

The problem was caused by the fact that middle school teachers were not giving students the necessary skills.  The teachers had no aggregate data on the achievement of their students because there was no point in the team creating common assessments or reviewing evidence of student learning together. The teachers were already working very hard individually and did not have the energy to work together on this task. There was no need to arrange for reteaching skills because if students did not learn the skills in the first semester they could do so in the second semester. There was no easy way to aggregate data on student achievement because Scantrons, which could readily provide the data, are not conducive to math assessment. Although the teachers agreed it was beneficial to have students make corrections on problems they had missed, they did not require students to do so.

The principal asked for advice. Here is what we said:

There are several things that the math team can do if it wants to reduce the failure rate. The first is to acknowledge that 1) reducing the failure rate is important and 2) changes in the teachers’ own practice will contribute to reducing the rate.

Here are some of the things that are being done in schools around the country, all of which have teachers who work hard and are pressed for time:

1) The team should work with eighth-grade teachers to establish the prerequisite skills students must have in order to be successful in algebra and create an assessment to identify whether or not an individual student has those skills. Each middle school teacher should receive the results of the assessment showing how his or her students performed compared to the total group. Middle school teachers can then identify where their students struggle compared to other similar students and can begin to address those problems. If your teachers contend the problem is in the middle school, then you should establish a partnership with those teachers to address the problem rather than allowing it to continue.

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