Bad report card for math training

The nation’s colleges are doing a lousy job of preparing elementary math teachers, according to a new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality. (Educators love reports and studies; you’ll be reading about a lot of them in this space.)

Two Colorado teacher prep programs – at Metropolitan State College of Denver and private Colorado College in Colorado Springs – were among the 77 studied. Both of those “failed on all measures” to prepare elementary math teachers adequately. Forty-eight percent of the programs studied fell into this lowest category.

Programs ranked in that category fail to offer enough courses geared to elementary math, and those they offer lack breadth and depth and use inadequate textbooks, the study concluded.

Metro math prof Jim Loats questioned the study, noting it considered mostly class descriptions and textbooks so didn’t review what actually goes on in classrooms.

(More important, the study also may not tell us much about Colorado, given that it didn’t cover programs at the University of Northern Colorado, the state’s major teacher training institution, or at other schools.)

Loats may have a point, given that most studies have their hidden flaws, but nobody can deny that math proficiency is a problem. Only about a third of Colorado 8th graders are proficient in math on a national test, according to the state Department of Education (CDE). About a third of freshman at state colleges and universities need remedial classes, and most of those kids are lagging in math.

Unless math instruction in elementary schools improves quickly and significantly, the United States will continue to slip relative to countries with superior math programs, the study warns.