for helping both low- and high-achieving students meet learning goals and

standards.

But, a growing body of research suggests that offering all students -- not

just the best and brightest -- an enriched, accelerated curriculum, can result

in significant gains in performance and learning for a broad cross-section of

students.

Minority students most responsive
This strategy may be particularly

effective for teaching math in middle school, conclude the authors of a

longitudinal study of almost 1,000 students who attended a suburban Nassau

County, Long Island school. The students attended school before or after it

transitioned from tracking to a universal accelerated curriculum in 1995. The

study shows across-the-board gains, with big gains for the school's minority

population.

"More students took advanced mathematics classes, more students passed such

courses along with their associated New York State examinations, and more

students completed such courses a year sooner than the average student in New

York State," the researchers conclude. They compared math achievement of six

cohorts of students-- three that received math instruction in tracked classes

for low-, average- and highachieving students (477 students) and three that were

exposed to a universal accelerated curriculum (508 students) after 1995.

"What students should know and be able to do in mathematics is a critical

ingredient of the standards debate," write the researchers, Carol Corbett

Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, NY and Jay

Heubert and Henry Levin from Teachers College at Columbia University. "National

councils and commissions have agreed that all students should master a more

challenging mathematics curriculum." RECENT Issues

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Accelerated mathematics in this middle school meant that the usual 6th, 7th

and 8th grade curricula would be taught in two years rather than three and that

the algebra-based, 9th-grade curricula, Sequential Mathematics I, would be

taught in 8th grade.

To measure math achievement of students in this longitudinal study, the

researchers analyzed the percentage of students who went on to take advanced

mathematics courses in high school.

By 12th grade, 92% of all students in the post-universal-acceleration group

had passed Sequential Mathematics III (compared to 83% before the change) and

the New York state regents examination, and 85% had passed a course with a

precalculus curriculum in high school (compared with 70% before the change), the

researchers report.

More minority students advance
The effect of offering a universal

accelerated curriculum was especially significant for minority populations.

After universal acceleration the percentage of minority students who passed the

Sequential Mathematics I regents exam before they entered high school tripled,

from 23% to 75%.

"Moreover, two-thirds of African American, Latino and low-SES (socioeconomic

status) students in the post-universal-acceleration cohorts successfully

completed Sequential Mathematics III, the first advanced mathematics course

identified in the literature as being associated with success in college," the

researchers write. Before the change, only 46% of African American and Latino

students had done so. As well as analyzing how many students went on to take

advanced math in high school, the researchers also wanted to address another

question: Did detracking have a negative impact on the performance of

high-achieving students?

A major concern of detracking is that it will "hold back" learning and

performance of high-achieving students, but the researchers conclude that, based

on the scores of high-achieving students on the New York state regents exams

before and after the school changed to universal accelerated curriculum, there

was no significant difference in scores (93.07 pre-acceleration vs. 91.72

post-acceleration.) As with other students, more high-achieving students took

advanced math classes with calculus in high school and scored higher on the

tests, the study found.

Again, there was a significant effect for students of color who were initial

high achievers, the researchers report. Before the school changed to a universal

accelerated curriculum, a little more than half of students of color who were

high achievers took advanced math in high school. "After universal acceleration,

all high-achieving students of color took and passed both the course and the

regents' examination in the eighth grade," the researchers write.

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To make the transition from tracking in math to a universal accelerated

curriculum the school: (a) revised the grades 6-8 curriculum, (b) created

support workshops to assist struggling students, (c) established common

preparation periods for math teachers, (d) integrated use of calculators, and

(e) revised math teachers' schedules to include four accelerated classes and two

workshops.

"The superintendent and the middle school leadership team believed that the

combination of (a) heterogeneous grouping, (b) a hightrack curriculum, and (c)

mathematics workshops would enable all learners to be successful without

reducing the achievement of the most proficient students," the researchers note.

Students were placed in alternate-day workshops, which averaged eight students,

based on teacher recommendations or parent requests. Students were allowed to

leave depending on their performance in class and their desire for support.

About 25% of students took a workshop class during the year.

"Accelerating Mathematics Achievement Using Heterogeneous Grouping"

American Educational Research Journal Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 2006 pps.

105-136.

Published in ERN May 2006 Volume 19 Number 5