After screening bids to ensure the materials met mandatory requirements, the school district’s K8 Math Leadership team sent along four proposals for further consideration by a larger selection committee.
That committee included 40 people across 21 schools and the district’s central office, as well as School Board member Ali Muldrow and Lisa Hennessey, a University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching faculty member who serves on the board of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Following hours of meetings and evaluations in January, the committee selected Illustrative from three finalists. The cost estimates for Illustrative or the other finalists weren’t shared in materials provided at the Instruction Working Group meeting this month. District administrators previously told School Board members the price tag of math materials would be less than its most recent purchase of reading curriculum, which cost $5.6 million.
In a presentation to School Board members, district officials highlighted the curriculum’s approach to working with students of different skill levels. Madison high schools already use Illustrative materials, meaning there would be consistency if the curriculum is adopted across all grade levels.
District officials particularly emphasized Illustrative’s “problem-based” learning approach, which involves students first tackling problems in small groups and then trying it themselves with supervision before the teacher models how to solve the problem.
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“The commercial math-education sector is flooded with ineffective math programs and T professional development marketed as “research-based.” But that can mean almost anything, from small case studies to opinion framed as research.”
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