Montgomery County, Maryland, Is Working to Improve School Math Performance

Montgomery County school officials have found no single cause to explain the district’s steep failure rates on high school math exams, but they are proposing a series of steps designed to help boost student performance and close the math achievement gap. Superintendent Joshua P. Starr offered a plan last week following concerns that started more than a year ago when exam failure rates of 50 percent to 60 percent in some courses alarmed parents in the high-performing school system.

Starr’s plan includes measures to beef up math expertise at the elementary school level; reconsider policies about how students progress through math; add new diagnostic tools to help support struggling students; increase professional development; and start an online library of teacher and student resources.

The recommendations draw on a lengthy effort by a district-created math work group to examine the issues behind exam failures and what can be done to turn things around. The group’s report was issued as Starr released his recommendations.

“The final report indicates that, as we know, there is no single factor responsible for high rates of failure on math exams and therefore there will not be one single strategy to improve student performance,” Starr told school board members as he described his approach.