April 4, 2022 Group Watch: Alabama House Approves Legislation To Provide Resources For Math Education
The Alabama House approved a Senate-passed bill aimed at improving the state’s performance on standardized math testing. The bill known as the Numeracy Act would set minimums for instruction of math and allow state intervention in public schools that fail to meet certain testing requirements. Legislators have long expressed frustration with Alabama’s performance on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The Numeracy Act would require teachers from kindergarten to fifth grade to devote at least one hour a day to math instruction. It would require schools to intervene with students who show mathematics deficiencies. Intervention could mean anything from additional instruction time to small group work to home-based math instruction. The bill would create an Office of Mathematics Improvement in the Department of Education. The office would identify the schools with the lowest math performance as full support schools, where teachers and staff would be required to engage in support and training on math standards. Another tier would be limited support schools that would have to implement standards and cooperate with direction from the Office of Mathematics Improvement.
