School Board OKs New Book Series for Math Programs

To curtail the number of math programs in Los Angeles schools, the Board of Education on Tuesday selected textbook series by two publishers for elementary schools and three series for middle schools.

Each of the 11 subdistricts within the Los Angeles Unified School District will be required to select only one series for use by all its schools.

Although the district could have chosen from a wider range of programs adopted last month by the state, Supt. Roy Romer said he wanted to limit the options to facilitate teacher training.

The board followed a similar course last year in approving only three elementary school reading programs. Since then, Open Court has emerged as the preferred program in most schools.

As the school district prepares to roll out a new math program next year, training the teachers to use the texts will be the district’s greatest challenge, Romer said.

“We’re going to have to assist those teachers in a very strategic way, not only to use textbooks, but to raise total skill in math,” Romer said.

He said the challenge will be particularly great in grades three, four and five, because those grades will be using Open Court for the first time as well as new math programs.

Following the recommendation of a mathematics textbook committee, the board voted to approve series by Harcourt School Publishers and Scott Foresman. The middle school series are by publishers McDougal Littell, Prentice Hall and Harcourt School Publishers.

The board amended Romer’s recommendation, however, by setting up a waiver procedure in which any school can ask to continue using a different series. The local superintendent will decide whether to grant the waiver.

Several teachers told board members they have invested funds in a program called Saxon Math and have found it effective in raising students’ test scores.

Romer said he would expect the superintendents to grant waivers sparingly.

“I just believe the local superintendents need to have the flexibility to organize their professional development around a series of texts that is uniform,” Romer said.