NEW YORK, NY September 02, 2003 —Though classes won't start until next week, New York City's 80-thousand teachers are returning to work today. They're learning the new curriculum for math and literacy - which will be used in all but a couple of hundred exempted schools. Creating a unified curriculum is key to the Bloomberg administration's school reform plan. As part of our ongoing series Reading, Writing and Reform, WNYC's Beth Fertig took a look at how the new curriculum will play out in the classroom.

Teaching elementary math used to involve a lot of chalk and photocopies. But this year, teachers will be adding dice, blocks and playing cards.

TEACHER: Six from 14 is 8, four times 3 is 12 minus 4 should give you 8.

These teachers are using a deck of cards to come up with different equations that all lead to the number 8. The game is called Name that number. And they're learning it at a training session held earlier this summer. Another activity has classrooms using calendars to track how many students are absent each day to come up with a monthly total. Cossetti Mathos and Ham Sweeney say this teaching style is different from what their students are used to.

MATHOS: It's a lot of like mental math, they have to think, there's not as much writing.

SWEENEY: What it requires is cooperative learning. And a lot of kids aren't used to learning in that way. OK. They really, the way that school's been structured is to really believe that the teacher or whoever is in front of the room is the bastillion of knowledge, it comes from one place.

The new curriculum is called Everyday Math because it engages kids with familiar objects. It also encourages them to look for different solutions says Jim Quail, an instructional superintendent in Brooklyn's Region 8.

QUAIL: Sometimes teachers are more interested in the answer, and we're trying to get away from that. See how kids arrived at that answer can be learning experience not only for you but for your neighbor.

In this class at John Jay High School, the teachers are sitting the way their students would - in clusters of four or five desks. Carol Mosesson Tieg says this is called the workshop model. The teachers give mini-lessons and then the students break into groups.

TIEG: Many of the teachers had their rooms set up in rows. Didn't have rooms set up in cooperative groups. Or if they did have the tables set up, which many did have the tables set up which many did, they never had discussions with the kids of how to work in those groups.

It's this philosophy that guided school officials in choosing the new curriculum for math and literacy. They believe one core curriculum will help raise student achievement in a system of 1200 schools that were all using different programs with mixed results. Diana Lam is a deputy chancellor in charge of instruction. She says every grade now has its own lesson plans and pacing guides.

LAM: Our curriculum mirrors a more balanced approach where there are plenty of opportunities within the curriculum and with the materials that we will be using to be able to successfully address different students' needs. What we have put together is core enough so that we expect it to happen in every school while at the same time flexible enough so that we don't lose the teachers' ability to address a specific issue with individual students.

But this approach also has its critics. Everyday Math has been labeled fuzzy math by those who say it favors concepts over basic skills like learning the times tables.

There are similar concerns about the literacy curriculum. A more traditional phonics program was added. But the heart of the literacy program is still less teacher-directed.

BOYLE: Is there another difference, what's the position now of the child and the position of the teacher is that a difference? TEACHER: Teacher is now out among the childre, not just lecturing it's not teacher driven specifically it comes from the children. BOYLE: It's not teacher driven at all.

Judy Boyle is an Australian expert who's coaching elementary teachers through the new literacy curriculum. Like the math program, it's got a workshop model with mini-lessons followed by activities. There's a greater focus on the students and their individual needs. Some kids might be encouraged to make lists of facts in order to improve their reading comprehension. Or they might use post-it notes, marking passages in a story that remind them of their own experiences. There are also new classroom libraries for encouraging kids to read on their own - and time is set aside for them to read and write during class. In this training session, teachers are learning how to guide their students in writing essays.

Source: "Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide"

TEACHER: Now that we've got this little tiny seed idea we're going to stretch it out or blow it out so it becomes a story.

Elizabeth Ortiz listens to some suggestions for how to narrow down a child's ideas in order to write a better paper. She teaches special education.

ORTIZ: This approach will be much better for them because they'll feel more comfortable with their writing rather than it being teacher directed and the teacher giving the topics and sometimes they're writing about things they don't feel comfortable about.

This approach to reading and writing is called Balanced Literacy and it's been used in districts throughout the city to varying degrees. But it's a huge change from the curriculum that was previously used in many of the city's lowest performing schools. That was called Success for All. Teachers relied on scripted lessons printed on colored index cards and even used egg timers to stay on track. Success for All was criticized for being too rigid - but it did raise the reading scores in many of those schools.

Deputy Chancellor Lam says the new curriculum includes many different tools that can be used by teachers to help struggling students in literacy and math. But she takes offense at suggestions that it doesn't provide enough direct instruction for New York City students. Because that, she says, implies something else.

LAM: I also do think it is a myth to think that poor and especially minority children can only get the rote and mechanical learning. I think that's a sad statement to make.

But poor and minority children ARE more likely to enter school with less advantages than middle class kids. And city teachers know even the best instruction has its limits.

Bonnie Kelly of PS 34 in Brooklyn was enthusiastic about learning the new literacy program. But with 20 years' experience, she knows many parents don't have the time or resources to help their children outside of school.

KELLY: Parents who are struggling work long hours you know. This is a program where you heard it's read to them, they have to be immersed in being read to. They don't have the parents, there are not going to be 100% of the parents there to assist in that aspect.

TEACHER: The name of the game is called Factor Captor...

There's another concern. Fewer than 10 percent of the city's 80,000 teachers attended different training programs over the summer run by the city and their union. This means the vast majority will arrive at work today with little preparation - aside from a CD ROM they were sent in June. So these next four days will be crucial. Ham Sweeney of PS 304 attended the summer session because she wanted more training.

SWEENEY: Cause when you go into the classroom you want to be prepared. You want as much opportunity - I want to inform my practice so I can service my children at the optimal level I can.

Education officials say the union contract prevented them from requiring teacher training over the summer. But they say more will occur throughout the year. Teachers will have an extra 50 minutes for professional development each week. There will also be math and literacy coaches in every school. But Sweeney and many of her colleagues wonder how they'll tackle a new curriculum for both math and literacy.

SWEENEY: In many ways this is overdue, this is well overdue. This is the way kids learn and I'm looking forward to having fun with learning and teaching this way. But I'm concerned that the administrator might not fully support it. It's such a change for teachers, it is such a change for students, it is such a change for parents who are not used to it.

School officials are sure to be feeling just as much pressure as everyone else. When test scores arrive, it won't be just the curriculum that's being judged but Mayor Bloomberg's pledge to improve the schools. For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.