Insights In Action

International School of Brooklyn (ISB) follows the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum and gives instruction in various subjects in a controlled mixture of a target language (French or Spanish) and English. Students in Grades 4 and 5, for example, receive mathematics instruction in both their target language classroom and in an English language classroom. They have different teachers in each language.

ISB undertook an investigation of CTP Mathematics outcomes for Grades 3, 5 and 7.

Their first look at the data uncovered a trend in declining student scores between Grades 3 and 5. Further investigation showed that the distinguishing variable was student ability rather than language track or teacher and students with the lowest national norm scores also showed the most significant decline. To continue their investigations, the school began administering the CTP Mathematics test in Grade 6 and found that the trend continued into the middle school years.

The realization that the school was not effectively serving students in the middle and lower ranges of mathematical ability led to a new effort to build a horizontally and vertically aligned structure and pedagogy for mathematics across the English, French, and Spanish language classrooms.