Algebra scores are down, and other takeaways from the Philly school board meeting

Fewer than one-third of Philadelphia high school students’ passed state math exams last year — fewer than previous years.

Citywide, 27.2% of Philadelphia School District students passed the state Keystone Algebra exam by 11th grade in 2023-24, the last year for which data has been publicly released. That’s down from a 30.1% pass rate in 2022-23, and more than 10 percentage points less than the system’s pre-pandemic high, in 2017-18, when 38.4% of students met standards.

“As superintendent, I am not satisfied,” Tony B. Watlington Sr. said at a Thursday evening school board Goals and Guardrails meeting designed to analyze data around high school performance. “It is not OK that our algebra performance went down. We absolutely will turn this around.”

Here are six takeaways from the recent board progress monitoring session:

Watlington and Jermaine Dawson, deputy superintendent for academics, outlined several reasons for the struggles.

“We do not have adequate or enough certified math teachers — through no fault of their own — who’ve had the benefit of a four-year college of education experience to learn both the math content and the math pedagogy,” Watlington said. Twenty years ago, when he was principal of a comprehensive high school in North Carolina, there was a teacher pipeline problem; now, it’s more pronounced, so “we’ve got to invest heavily in making sure our teachers are well supported and well prepared.”

Dawson noted that many students take algebra in their first year of high school — research shows that ninth grade is often a tough transition year, academically and behaviorally.

In addition to more teacher professional development around math, Dawson and Watlington said the district would consider when students take algebra — some might tackle it earlier, and some might get it later. (Most eighth graders are not offered algebra, though the district found early success in a pilot where some were able to take the course remotely, and it plans to expand that program.)

The district also will examine expanding student time spent in math class; one period may not be enough.

“We’ve got to provide more time during the school day on math instruction,” said Watlington, who also reminded the board that the district moved to a new math curriculum last year — a “heavy lift” for educators as they come up to speed on the new system.

Watlington said that some of the fixes he has in mind will need buy-in from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which is currently negotiating a new contract.

That is, the students who struggle most are often taught by newer and less experienced teachers.

“We’ve got to be more strategic about how we schedule kids with math teachers who are the most effective math teachers,” Watlington said. “A gold standard is to get the kids who are the farthest away from proficiency the absolutely best, most effective algebra teachers.”

The district must work on “flipping the script” with incentives to match strong teachers to the students who need them most, the superintendent said.

Board member Crystal Cubbage, who’s trained as a scientist and an educator, said she was “really concerned” with the district’s algebra performance.

“The strategy that you shared didn’t sound like a strategy to me,” Cubbage said. “It sounded like a lot of different things. I’d like to hear a plan that’s more systematic.”

The board also heard about high school students’ performance in biology and literature Keystones.

In 2023-24, 32.4% of students passed the biology exam by 11th grade, up from 31.4% the prior year. (The district’s best-ever performance was 35.9% of students passing, in 2017-18.)

On the literature exam, 51.9% of students passed, down from 53.9% in 2022-23, the highest pass rate ever for the district.

More Philadelphia students are performing well on the NOCTI, the exam taken in career and technical programs.

Last year, 57% of Philadelphia students who took the NOCTI scored competent or advanced, up from 49.1% the prior year.