An algebra-ready goal propelled the Oakland Unified School District to partner with Oakland Reach on MathBoost, a pilot program with trained parent/caregiver tutors based on a successful reading tutoring model. The "math liberators" work with elementary-school teachers in class and with small pull-out groups, and a teacher, tutor and Oakland Reach CEO explain the program and "Math Mindset" parent outreach meetings.

The success rate of some online math programs depends in large part on whether they're used as recommended, but many of the prescription-followers are the already higher-achieving students, Laurence Holt, a senior advisor at XQ Institute, writes in this commentary. Holt -- who says 95% of students, including those who need the most help, aren't following through enough to see significant results -- points to various student and teacher motivation issues and suggests program costs be tied to student achievement.

Education experts emphasize the need for assessments that support personalized instruction, lamenting the lag in creating new assessments that go beyond answers to gauge students' strategies and misconceptions. Despite some advancements in assessment technology, states and districts have yet to provide teachers with adequate training and support to implement these tools effectively.

Solutions that are lower-tech than AI exist to help educators reduce repetitive tasks, such as Scribbr to generate bibliographies and citations and TextBlaze to quickly drop in often-used text such as instructions. To take a PDF and make it editable to be able to cut and paste parts of a document, try PDFescape or Smallpdf, recommends educator Michael Gaskell.

Average statistics and economics exam scores rose by 7% in college courses that included games in teaching, while the number of failing students decreased and student satisfaction increased, according to a study led by Warwick Business School assistant professor Joshua Fullard. The study reinforces that traditional lecturing alone "is not the best approach for learning, even in numbers-based subjects," Fullard says, and the research provides short class activities that are simple to implement. 

Ninety-two percent of public school leaders responding to a National Center for Education Statistics survey expressed concern about their students meeting academic standards, and about two-thirds agreed that state-mandated testing can lead to better math and English language arts instruction for many students. Despite a majority of school leaders supporting year-end assessments, 13 states are investigating through-year assessment models for more timely student performance data.

Three educators share highlights of helpful education research, including Min Oh, a postdoctoral Education Sciences fellow at the University of Virginia, who discusses the growing importance of asset-based techniques to multilingual learning. Instructional coach Erica Silva focuses on "racial noticing," emphasizing the importance of learning to pronounce students' names, while Marilyn Chu, a Western Washington University professor emeritus, notes the importance of community wisdom to learning effectiveness.

We're one day away from Friday! 

The variety of poll answers about Thinking Learning vs. direct instruction are fascinating. I love that it shows the discerning nature of math teachers: Experiment and evaluate, but don't necessarily buy into everything you read. (It's a good lesson for students too!) If you missed Monday's story about Thinking Classrooms, it's not too late to read it. (Spoiler alert: The author is very much on Team Direct Instruction.)

Love Math Education SmartBrief? Click the Share button at the top or bottom of the newsletter and forward it to your colleagues! Also, I'd like to know what you like and what you'd change about the newsletter. 

Have a great rest of the day, and a terrific weekend coming up.