The Alabama Senate voted on Wednesday to pass legislation designed to address Alabama’s worst-in-the-nation student math scores. The Numeracy Act is an attempt by the state legislature to prepare a roadmap to improve math education in Alabama’s public schools.
Senate Bill 171 (SB171) is sponsored by Arthur Orr (R-Decatur). The bill was substituted on Tuesday in the Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee, which is chaired by Orr.
Orr explained that hiring math coaches in order to improve how Alabama's teachers teach math is a large part of this plan. This plan is similar to the effort that the legislature passed in 2019 to deal with reading - the Alabama Literacy Act.
According to the synopsis, SB171 would, “Establish the Alabama Numeracy Act and prohibit the use of the Common Core State Standards in public K-12 schools; to implement steps to improve mathematics proficiency of public school K-5 grade students and ensure that those students are proficient in mathematics at or above grade level by the end of fifth grade by monitoring the progression of each student from one grade to another, in part, by his or her proficiency in mathematics.”
Mark Dixon is the President of A+ Education Partnership. Dixon said that the Numeracy Act would make Alabama teachers “better math teachers.
“After six years, there would be a math coach per every 500 students,” Dixon explained.
“There is much more intensive support for failing schools,” Dixon said. “A state team would work with the local board.
“The local board would have the option to reconstitute the school and hire a new principal or turn the school into a charter,” if it fails to make adequate progress after efforts to improve performance failed, Dixon explained. Dixon was asked if students who failed to achieve grade-level math performance would be retained for a second year.
“A+ is not in favor of retention in this bill,” Dixon said.
According to their website, “A+ Education Partnership was founded in 1991 to unite business, civic, government, and education leaders around one common goal: improving student opportunity and achievement for every child in Alabama, no matter their zip code or circumstance. A+ worked relentlessly to become the foremost change agent in K-12 education in the state by speaking out for progress in education and conducting town hall meetings across the state to discuss a blueprint for improving public education. When resulting legislation was defeated, A+ chose to stay the course.”
Orr presented a substitute to the committee.
Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham) said, “It is a 52-page sub. I can’t vote for something I have not seen and don’t understand.”
The committee gave the Numeracy Act a favorable report 10-0. Smitherman abstained.
Becky Gerritson is the Executive Director of Eagle Forum of Alabama.
“This bill is touted as a bill that is going to get rid of Common Core math in Alabama, but that is disingenuous because it does not remove the Common Core standards that are in place for math in Alabama, so students will still be using Common Core standards,” Gerritson told 1819 News. Gerritson said that Eagle Forum took the standards we are using now and lined them up next to the Common Core and they are the same standards.
Gerritson said that Eagle Forum opposes SB171 because, “They are doing nothing to get rid of Common Core in Alabama. Plus it creates three new committees, new bureaucracies in the Department of Education: the Elementary mathematics task force which has 17 members, the post-secondary mathematics task force, which has a director and 11 regional coordinators, and the office of mathematics improvement which has nine members.
“We will be spending $92 million [per year] once it is fully implemented,” Gerritson told 1819 News. “People need to wake up that the only way we can get rid of Common Core is to get rid of the standards that are in place.”
In the most recent state education rankings by USA Today – pre-pandemic – Alabama’s public schools were ranked the worst in the country. Alabama’s fourth-graders were 52nd in mathematical ability – behind the 49 other states, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense’s schools.
SB171 passed the full Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 24-3. The bill now goes to the Alabama House of Representatives for their consideration.
Thursday will be day 18 of the 2021 Alabama Regular Legislative Session.
