A teacher checks in on her 1st grade students during a math test at Robbins Elementary.
Photo: Sydney Johnson
Most of the ink spilled on the new California Mathematics Framework was focused on two debates that have persisted in K-12 education for decades: whether progressive or traditional forms of pedagogy serve students best and how to navigate tensions between equity and excellence.
Meanwhile, one of the more transformative shifts initiated by the state’s new guidance on K-12 math instruction has flown under the radar.
The change is captured by two words that appear together 36 times in this framework but not once in the prior version: grade bands.
The adoption of an instructional approach that teaches to grade bands — that is, learning progressions within mathematical concepts across multiple grade levels — departs from the prior framework, which focused exclusively on individual grade levels. Up to now,…
