Thoughts on Thinking Classroom and Proficiency Scores

It’s a late-summer tradition, not only for us, but for many in town: finding out which teachers (or team, for CMS) your students will have for the upcoming year, and texting friends and neighbors to compare. This year has been no different in that respect, but this time it led to some concerns and a look back at last year.

As Building the Thinking Classroom (BTC) was adopted widely among math teachers for the 2022-2023 school year, we began to see slipping grades, confusion, and questions. The District arranged a meeting for parents that received such an overwhelming response it had to be moved from the GL cafeteria to the auditorium. Approximately 100 parents showed up. After a slick hour-long presentation, answers were nowhere in sight, and parent anger was visible. Few changes were made, and the District was careful to avoid having such large groups of parents gather again, instead asking them to attend small-group presentations. Many parents resorted to tutors and other outside help to fill in their children’s math education.

Looking to the upcoming year, one wonders whether we will see a change in the number of teachers using BTC (fewer or more attempting to apply it), a return to more traditional instruction, or another new method of teaching math thrust upon our students. But then something else occurred to me… how this past year might be affecting our math proficiencies as tracked by standardized exams.

We know for a fact, based on parent turnout at the meeting, written communication among parent groups that sprang up after the meeting, and from parents’ emails to teachers and administration, that many students were negatively affected by the wide-spread adoption of BTC. We know for a fact, based on the same measures above, and on subsequent requests for tutoring recommendations, that this was a direction all too many parents had to take for the remainder of the school year. What we don’t know is how that all will shake out as we receive the results of subsequent standardized tests.  There are only three outcomes possible: another decline, no change, or improvement. 

How will we know if potential improvements are the result of BTC directly, or the result of supplemental instruction? 

Can any potential decline be attributed solely to BTC by tracking the progress (or lack thereof) of students in BTC classrooms? 

Would our District ever think to look that deeply?  And if they did, would they ever release such results?

On the subject of discussions around which teachers have been drawn, as I sit here musing and writing, I’m overhearing a conversation among a group of teens.  “Bruh, if you got _(teacher)_ straight up drop the class.”  It seems our kids could probably shed some light here as well, should the District stop blocking student attempts at gathering their own data, as we saw last year with the BTC survey that lasted only a few minutes before being removed.  Or if they stopped hiding behind the worn phrase “teaching is an art”. 

You know what is an art, or if not an art, then at least an uncommon skill? 

Listening, with the capability to react and make changes based on what you hear. 

In the meantime, best wishes for a productive school year, Berkeley Heights.

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