This Knowledge Brief is part of a continuing series designed to inform California education leaders about key policy issues related to teachers and teaching in the Golden State.
BY ELIZABETH BURR, REINO MAKKONEN, RYAN LEWIS, ERIC CRANE
The coming months are an opportune time to reexamine the professional learning infrastructure around math teaching in California. In addition to the reconceptualized instructional guidance and the emphasis on equity put forth in the math framework revision that’s now underway, California counties, local education agencies, and schools are also rebuilding their policies and systems for the 2021/22 school year and acknowledging lessons learned from the pandemic and its differential impacts on certain groups of students. Our latest knowledge brief aims to inform state and district leaders about options regarding effective professional learning for California math educators in advance of the adoption of the new math framework in 2022. This brief summarizes California math teachers’ survey responses from spring 2020 about the professional learning they received during the 2019/20 school year —both before and during the period of school closures due to COVID-19 —and describes key steps education leaders can take to support the implementation of the new framework. It also compares views of California math teachers with those of non-California math teachers and with those of California teachers who teach other subjects.
Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages
