When I taught middle school math, some of my worst days as a teacher were spent sitting at an uncomfortable cafeteria table, watching someone slog through a PowerPoint about strategies for classroom management or student engagement.
Like students, teachers learn best by doing; research has long shown that learning is more effective when it’s active. The ineffectiveness of our training was compounded by the fact that, in my school district, Brockton Public Schools, near Boston, we did not have a math curriculum, so classroom instruction was disjointed.
As a result, our students’ math scores were consistently dropping. Then Covid hit. By 2021, only 12 percent of our middle schoolers met or exceeded math expectations on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
When I became the middle school math and science curriculum coordinator in 2021, after teaching in the district for 13 years, one of the first things we did was adopt a core math curriculum for all middle schools. And our rollout to teachers was active. For every classroom in grades 6-8, we delivered in-person professional learning that invited teachers to experience math content just as their students would.
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Of course, that didn’t guarantee our teachers would use the curriculum, so we carved out daily common planning time and had every grade-level team sit down together to discuss what students would learn. We reviewed how students would be assessed, how teachers could support all learners — including students with disabilities, underserved populations and multilingual learners — and how the teachers would work with student groups.
Teachers were skeptical at first. Some told me, “My students won’t work in groups,” or “They’re not going to talk about math.”
But when instructional coaches from our curriculum provider modeled lessons in front of their classes, teachers saw what was possible. Their students were talking, collaborating and fully engaging in the work.
Teachers also saw that the coaches were there to observe, model and provide feedback — not to judge. That opened the door to trust. Teachers felt safe to admit what they didn’t know and try new strategies. Before long, teachers saw the value in making the shift from being the “sage on the stage” to facilitators of learning.
We added peer observations, too. Teachers now observe each other teaching and give feedback. It’s the feedback that drives change.
Change isn’t always easy, even when it’s needed. But if we can do it, any district can.
When we were looking for a math curriculum, we not only wanted to change what was taught but how. Before, teachers primarily focused on procedures because that’s the way they were taught: “Memorize these steps. Now practice with the problems on this worksheet.”
That approach, however, doesn’t help students grasp the “why” behind mathematical ideas. Now, we balance procedural fluency with conceptual understanding and real-world applications so students can grasp the underlying principles and reasoning behind math concepts.
Yet, even though teachers see how effective this approach is, they do sometimes fall back into old routines because it seems easier to hand out worksheets than to help students understand how and why math works. This is why accountability is crucial.
In every middle school, leaders regularly conduct learning walks, in which they stroll through math classrooms to make sure teachers are teaching to the grade-level standards using our curriculum. Because the leaders have been trained in our curriculum, they know which teaching practices to look for and which math practices students should be demonstrating. When our walks reveal that teachers need support, we provide it. I am constantly taking courses and adapting my coaching to meet teachers’ needs. Sometimes just a few small tweaks can help even the best teachers take their practice to the next level.
Over the last four years, our schools have made significant improvements. From 2021 to 2025, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations in math on the MCAS increased from
- 11 to 21 percent in sixth grade (a 91 percent increase).
- 13 to 16 percent in seventh grade (a 23 percent increase).
- 13 to 21 percent in eighth grade (a 62 percent increase).
This progress took a great deal of rethinking how we view math instruction, how we support our teachers and how we believe in our students.
This approach is particularly important in a district like ours, with so many diverse needs. We serve over 15,000 students in Brockton. Seventy-two percent are low-income; more than 34 percent are multilingual learners; and 53 percent identify their first language as something other than English. Last year, 1,500 migrant students entered our district; some of these new middle schoolers hadn’t been in school since second grade.
It’s been gratifying to see progress, especially when so many other districts still haven’t caught up to where they were before the pandemic.
To help students reengage with concepts and fill in gaps in prior knowledge, we offer an interactive video streaming program to our middle schools. As students participate in exercises that adapt to their level and in game-based activities, they build their skills in a low-risk environment, which alleviates math anxiety.
Given the ongoing teacher shortages — we still have five openings to fill this year — the video program has been a lifeline for providing targeted remediation when certified teachers aren’t available. Not surprisingly, the two schools that use the program are also our top performers. In fact, one school had a 440 percent increase in sixth grade MCAS passing rates between 2021 and 2025.
Related: Kids and parents dislike math homework, so teachers are scrapping it. Will students be better off?
Another hurdle we’ve faced has been in promoting the idea of productive struggle. Productive struggle keeps students in the zone of learning where they feel challenged but not overwhelmed.
When students work through problems that require effort, they build perseverance and flexible thinking. When they try, fail and try again, they learn from their mistakes. They build resilience and start to take more ownership of their learning.
Many teachers are nurturers. They don’t like watching their students struggle, so they sometimes model too much or intervene too early. But math requires struggle.
To help teachers get more comfortable with this idea, we’ve adopted teaching practices from mathematics education professor Peter Liljedahl’s “Building Thinking Classrooms.” Practices such as giving thinking tasks and using vertical nonpermanent surfaces, such as whiteboards and chalkboards, are pushing students to build their thinking and support each other.
By 2025, according to an independent education consultant, 93 percent of our teachers were using our core curriculum. There is now consistency in math across our middle schools. Students can move from one school to another and pick up right where they left off. That consistency lends itself to greater collaboration. When teachers no longer have to worry about what to teach, they can work together and focus on how to teach their students better.
We still have more to do, but our progress shows what’s possible when we believe in teachers and students and give them the resources they need to do their best work.
Candice McGann is the middle school math and science coordinator for Brockton Public Schools, which is located 20 miles south of Boston. Before stepping into this role in 2021, she taught middle school math for 13 years in the district.
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