Longview-area school districts are working through what one superintendent calls a perfect storm of challenges to keep up with new, more rigorous math curriculum standards in Texas elementary and middle schools.

Under state-mandated changes that began this year, students are required to learn some concepts as much as two years sooner. And while school leaders said they agree with the intent of the changes, they’re not as sure about how it’s being done.

“The math standards are ideally what we want our students to be learning,” said T.J. Farler, superintendent at Pine Tree ISD. “The challenge with the implementation of this round of new standards is that there has not been an adequate implementation phase and time to transition. Additionally, our teachers have lacked resources for the new math standards — again due to the lack of a reasonable timeline for implementation.”

At Spring Hill ISD, Superintendent Steven Snell echoed Farler’s sentiment, adding that new standards are only part of the challenge.

“The problem stems from a combination of state budget cuts, fewer staff members, time and pace, and the sheer volume of state standards for each class at each grade level,” he said. “This perfect storm has led to greatly increased stress and frustration on behalf of our teaching staff.”

Sabine ISD Superintendent Stacey Bryce said the math standards are a concern in his districts.

“The state has changed the rules without allowing appropriate time for us to adjust our teaching in order to prepare the students,” Bryce said. “We certainly have to change our scope and sequence in the curriculum, but the change in the math standards will not benefit students initially.”

Bryce said the students aren’t a year behind necessarily, but there are some learning gaps.

The new standards

State education officials adopted the revised standards in April 2012 after a regular review of curriculum showed a need to better prepare students for high school and college, said Monica Martinez, an associate commissioner at the Texas Education Agency.

Among the new requirements, which were developed over a two-year period, are teaching advanced concepts intended to promote the mathematical reasoning students need for higher education.

Now, instead of memorizing multiplication tables in fourth grade, students do it in third. Lessons on fractions previously taught in fourth grade have moved to third grade. Learning to use a protractor to measure and draw an angle now happens in fourth grade instead of sixth.

White Oak ISD Superintendent Michael Gilbert said the number of new standards has presented a challenge.

“White Oak ISD, along with the majority of districts in the state, has repeatedly expressed concern about the number of required TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills),” Gilbert said, referring to the state standards for what students should know and be able to do. “This ‘mile-wide, inch-deep’ curriculum approach creates an undue level of urgency to cover all the required standards in one year. That sense of urgency removes the professional educator’s autonomy to create as many highly engaged, probing lessons needed by today’s students.”

15 months’ work in seven

Snell outlined the cause of the urgency. The state gives teachers about 15 months’ worth of material to cover in nine months, he said, but then doles out the high-stakes State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test after just seven months into the school year.

“Our teachers are working fast and furious to teach the current standards at the frantic, and frankly unrealistic, pace the state has set,” he said. “Now, the ‘what’ to teach has changed, in some grades by almost 60 percent.”

That means multiple years’ lessons now must be taught in one as skills requirements are moved up.

“You now have standards that were typically taught at grade five appearing in grade three,” Farler said. “Our teachers will need to teach not only the current required standards for that grade level, but those that were compressed to lower grade levels and do this all within the same school year.”

The standards changes could have been a little better thought out, she said.

“A better approach would have been to include fewer standards but with more depth and complexity,” Farler said.

All area district teachers began training for the new standards last year at the Region 7 Service Center.

Hallsville ISD spokeswoman Carol Greer said her district’s teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade designed their own curriculum based on the new standards.

At Pine Tree, Farler said her district is training parents, as well.

“This spring , Pine Tree ISD hosted Family Numeracy Nights to help parents understand the new math standards and what would be required for students at each grade level,” Farler said. “Pine Tree ISD is considering several ‘Math Nights’ for our parents in order to help them understand the new standards.”

Longview ISD hires

Longview ISD officials did not respond to requests for comments about the new standards. But LISD earlier this year hired two math consultants to increase the district’s math scores.

Stacey Grant was hired by Longview ISD as a consultant for elementary and middle school levels, and William Glee was hired as a secondary level math consultant. The cost of the two consultants, who are to help teachers reach students in third through 12th grades, is not to exceed a combined $85,000, district officials said.

Glee hails from Cedar Hill ISD, the former district of assistant superintendent Horace Williams, and has worked for Project SEED since 1983 as a mathematics specialist, training supervisor and project director in Dallas. Grant is with the Texas Coalition for Essential Schools as a math consultant and coach for public schools. She has been a math curriculum coordinator, district instructional math coach, assistant principal and math teacher.

The state conceded some this year on testing pressure. Normally, students must pass the STAAR test in fifth and eighth grades to advance. That requirement was waived this year.

Parents, educators agree

But while state testing got a pass this year, students’ grades did not and will still be scored based on the new standards. Still, some educators have called for the state to do more to ease concerns in the classroom, including the removal of student performance on math exams from school accountability ratings.

Meanwhile, parents across the state are crying foul over their students’ sudden decline in math scores.

Early reviews have been mixed, the education agency’s Martinez said.

“For every concern we’ve heard, we have also heard that things are going OK,” she said.

Snell said students aren’t the only ones suddenly under the proverbial gun.

“One of the reasons why this has not, and probably will not, get the attention and parent outcry it should is because our teachers are bearing that burden,” he said. “They roll up their sleeves and quietly do an incredible job meeting the needs of their students. In spite of all the obstacles the state has put in their way, our students are successful.”

He cautioned that such an effort comes at a price.

“They are also more stressed than ever before,” Snell said. “If I could ask one thing of the State Board of Education, it would be to reduce the number of standards and at the very least identify the standards that are the critical teaching concepts.”

That would end teachers having to play the guessing game of what will be on the state-mandated test, he said.