Parents bash MVP Math in comments released by Wake County about high school program
The Wake County school system has made public the largely negative comments that more than 3,100 parents made about its controversial high school math program.
MGT Consulting Group had surveyed parents in October and November as part of a third-party review into the Wake County school system’s use of the MVP Math program. Wake school officials say the parental comments that were part of the survey aren’t public records, but released the data after getting a public records request.
The comments highlight what MGT previously reported, including how 53% said MVP has frustrated their kids, 55% said their child’s math performance has declined and 61% said it’s not an improvement over prior curriculum.
“MVP is horrible,” one parent wrote. “My son went from As in math to C’s and Ds. He was an Honor student for years. Worst program ever. He is learning NOTHING. We had to get a tutor. This curriculum is turning kids OFF math!”
Wake County school officials caution that the survey and the comments are over-represented by critics who took it multiple times.
New math a struggle for some students
Since the 2017-18 school year, Wake has used materials from the Utah-based Mathematics Vision Project to teach high school-level math based on Common Core standards. Instead of hearing a lecture and memorizing formulas, the focus has shifted to students working in groups to solve problems while teachers act as facilitators.
MVP uses the concept of “productive struggle,” in which students learn through increasingly challenging problems.
A number of the parents said in the survey that the struggle has been anything but productive.
“Classroom implementation was extremely difficult at best — my daughter went from strong A’s in math to failing for the semester,” a parent wrote in the survey. “Very discouraging for her and me to see the struggle and realize no one was doing anything about it.”
Despite the complaints, MGT recommended in December that Wake keep using MVP while making changes such as providing better training for teachers and providing additional resources for students. MGT was paid $112,789 to do the report.
MVP has referred all questions about the program to the district, which says it’s making changes to improve how math is taught.
COVID-19 causes problems for math classes
Wake’s efforts to use MVP have been challenged by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused schools to close in mid-March. Teachers switched to using remote instruction, which has made working in groups more difficult for students.
“We just built a math curriculum on collaboration and I believe that productive struggle and the work that we’re doing is important,” school board member Christine Kushner said at a work session last week. “But if we built that foundation, how have we continued that through remote learning? How do we continue that remote learning for students?”
Holly Springs parents Peter and Carrie Bley, who’ve been vocal critics of MVP, say that the program relies too heavily on the classroom environment to be used during remote learning.
“These curriculum resources were rendered obsolete as soon as the schools closed due to COVID-19,” they said in comments submitted to last week’s school board meeting.
Public records request for comments
After the MGT report came out, Blain Dillard requested the raw parental surveys. Dillard is a Cary parent who has been a leader in the fight against the MVP math curriculum.
A district legal review determined that the raw parental surveys are not public records. But Wake asked MGT in February to release the information to the district.
MGT says the parents who took the surveys were told their responses would be kept confidential. To protect the privacy of students, Wake removed any information that could identify individual students.
A set of documents was sent to Dillard in April but were missing several comments, including the ones he had submitted. Dillard received an updated set of comments in June.
Dillard reviewed the data, finding that the words “frustrate,” “frustrated” or “frustrating” were mentioned 488 times by parents in the comments and that “struggle” or “struggling” were mentioned 407 times. He said “fail,” “failing,” “failed” and “failure” was used 288 times.
Dillard and other MVP critics are hoping to use the program as an issue in this fall’s election. All nine school board members are running in November.
“It is still unfathomable that MGT gave such a positive spin to the (school board’s) student achievement committee,” Dillard said in an email. “And more unfathomable that WCPSS would ignore this feedback.”
This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Parents bash MVP Math in comments released by Wake County about high school program."
