Philly schools will pour $5m into teacher training to bolster shaky algebra performance — with help from Penn

Fewer than one in three of Philadelphia School District students passed the state’s algebra exam last school year, and the system’s performance has worsened.

To help stem the tide, the district — bolstered by funds from the Neubauer Family Foundation and with assistance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education — will spend almost $5 million to improve math instruction.

Any algebra teacher in the school system can opt into a fellowship that will yield a $3,000 stipend and credits for attending a four-day summer program in August, followed by individualized coaching, three professional development days during the school year, and monthly work with other algebra teachers.

» READ MORE: Algebra scores are down, and other takeaways from the Philly school board meeting

The funds will support 100 teachers in the “Algebra 1 Fellowship” per year over three years — meaning all algebra educators in the system can participate.

“The program is designed to strengthen instructional practices, deepen content knowledge, and build a collaborative city-wide network of Algebra educators,” Penn GSE officials said in a statement.

The fellowship is tailored to align with the district’s Illustrative Math curriculum, which was introduced citywide last year.

Academic performance is generally up across the board in the district, but algebra is a weak spot. In the 2023-24 Keystone exam, the last year for which results are available, just 27.2% of district students passed the algebra test, down from a 30.1% pass rate the prior year.

Addressing the district’s algebra performance at a school board progress monitoring session in November, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said he was “not satisfied. It is not OK that our algebra performance went down. We absolutely will turn this around.”

Watlington cited the teacher shortage and large numbers of emergency-prepared teachers as one reason for the algebra Achilles’ heel; he said the district will examine when in their academic careers students take algebra, and possibly have students spend more than one period a day in math class.

The algebra institute is another strategy, officials said.

Katharine O. Strunk, dean of Penn GSE, said the school was excited to work with the district to enhance algebra instruction.

“At Penn GSE, we are deeply committed to working alongside our local partners to address pressing challenges in our community that align with their priorities,” Strunk said in a statement.

“This fellowship was developed in direct response to a need identified by the School District, and we are honored to support teachers with the tools, training, and strategies that will help their students thrive in this critical subject,” Strunk said.

Watlington said in a statement that Penn and the Neubauer foundation “have stepped up in a powerful way to address a critical academic need in our schools. Algebra 1 is a gateway to future achievement, and this fellowship represents the kind of forward-thinking collaboration that can make a real difference in the lives of our students and the effectiveness of our educators.”

The algebra institute is not Penn’s only recent partnership with Philadelphia schools. Officials recently announced a program to help train district personnel on the best uses of artificial intelligence in schools. With another nonprofit, Penn GSE also began the Academy at Penn, a project to help underserved students from two neighborhood high schools — School of the Future and Furness High — get to college.