When the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools turned to Loyola Marymount University’s Center for Math and Science Teaching to try LMU’s program, they didn’t expect to make so much progress so quickly. Within two academic years, the Alliance saw marked improvement in the California Standards Test math scores at the 16 schools they operate within the L.A. Unified School District.
CMAST’s program is seminar-style classes for middle and high school science teachers to explore methods to improve their students’ performance and implement the methods in their classrooms. The new teaching methods are then observed and assessed by CMAST staff and faculty.
“CMAST has really solidified what Alliance instruction is all about,” said Judy Burton, Alliance president and chief executive. “Students are much more engaged, and our teachers have improved their capacity to be effective. Most important, our student academic performance data clearly shows that the program has made a difference.”
In 2007, just as Alliance was beginning its collaboration with the LMU center, students scoring below or far below basic on the standards test amounted to 68 percent. After a full year of collaboration, there was an improvement of 30 percentage points so that only 38 percent of the students were in those categories. A slight decrease in 2009 — to 48 percent — indicates the program is sustainable even as Alliance added two schools. Equally impressive were the results with students in the proficient/advanced categories who comprised 11 percent in 2007. In 2008, proficient/advanced students rose 18 percentage points to 29 percent. The success was sustained in 2009, with only a slight dip to 27 percent.
“We have learned a lot and our results show it,” Burton said. “Five of our Alliance high schools are among the top 16 highest-performing schools in Los Angeles even though they are in the highest poverty, historically lowest academically areas in the city. We clearly attribute this to our work with CMAST and hope to continue working with them not only in math but in science, as well.”
In the beginning of the partnership, there was resistance to the approaches CMAST was advocating. “We met a mixed response,” said Kathy Clemmer, director of the Center for Math and Science Teaching. “Some teachers were leery that this was the solution.”
“I think what is most significant about CMAST is that it’s not a ‘send teachers to professional development’ approach,” said Burton. “It’s about professional development as an opportunity to learn in the classroom, with real work around instructional strategies. Teachers get concrete feedback on how they’re doing and concrete feedback on what their students are learning.”
The CMAST, supported by the Stuart Foundation, is a research-based professional learning program in collaboration with the School of Education and the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering.
