Content Coverage Differences across Districts/States: A Persisting Challenge for U.S. Education Policy

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Education.This article utilizes the 1999 TIMSS-R data from U.S. states and districts to explore the consequences of variation in opportunities to learn specific mathematics content. Analyses explore the relationship between classroom mathematics content coverage and student achievement as measured by the TIMSS-R international mathematics scaled score. District/state-level socioeconomic status indicators demonstrated significant relationships with the dependent variable, mathematics achievement, and the classroom-level measure of content coverage. A threelevel hierarchical linear model demonstrated a significant effect of classroom content coverage on achievement while controlling for student background at the student level and SES at all three levels documenting significant differences in mathematics learning opportunities as a function of the U.S. education system structure.Sometimes differences yield equivalent results. Sometimes, however, differences make a difference. This article explores whether the differences across states and districts in eighth-grade opportunities to learn various mathematics content represent equivalent expressions of eighth-grade mathematics or different opportunities leading to different eighth-grade mathematics learning.

How Well Aligned Are Textbooks to the Common Core Standards in Mathematics?

“…Recent work provides startling evidence of instructional incoherence and poor standards alignment in mathematics (Jacobs et al, 2006;Polikoff, 2012bPolikoff, , 2012c. Furthermore, variation in curricular coverage accounts for a meaningful proportion of the persistent achievement gaps in mathematics (Schmidt et al, 2011).…”

Instructional Alignment as a Measure of Teaching Quality

“…This assumption is a primary rationale for the creation of state and Common Core content standards, which specify the particular skills and knowledge students are to acquire and therefore provide guidance for teachers on the most important content to be taught. Students' opportunity to learn (OTL) the content specified in the standards is thought to be an essential element for ensuring the validity of assessment results used to guide decisions for school accountability (McDonnell, 1995;Porter, 1995;Schmidt, Cogan, Houang, & McKnight, 2011). Research bears out the importance of content coverage in affecting student learning gains across subjects (e.g., Gamoran, Porter, Smithson, & White, 1997;Sebring, 1987).…”

“…The literature tells us that variation in content coverage remains a pressing policy issue, both within and across states (Schmidt et al, 2011), and there is widespread belief that the content of instruction matters-otherwise, why have content standards? Indeed, aligning instruction with content standards is one of the central policy goals underlying standards-based reform (Smith & O'Day, 1991), and alignment is a major focus of federal standards policies.…”

Change between 2003 and 2012 in mathematics performance across content area space and shape

“…opportunity to learn refers not only to the time a student spends learning given content, but also, and more importantly, to the content taught in the classroom. international and country-level research has highlighted a positive association between content coverage and achievement in mathematics (dumay and dupriez, 2007;Rowan, correnti, and miller, 2002;schmidt et al, 2001;schmidt et al, 2011) andscience (sousa andarmor, 2010). this section extends previous analyses of Pisa 2012 data investigating the link between exposure to and familiarity with mathematics on the one hand and mathematics performance on the other (oecd, 2014;schmidt, Zoido and cogan, 2014;.…”