Mathematics Leadership Corps

For 25 years, Katharine Clemmer has worked to support students as mathematical thinkers, problem solvers and self-regulated learners — most recently in her role as director of SOE’s Mathematics Leadership Corps.

MLC partners with K-12 school districts and philanthropic organizations to empower teachers in the effort to strengthen student-led math learning. Over time, Clemmer and her MLC colleagues discovered that while they could achieve dramatic results with the districts they worked with in the short term, the improvements failed to sufficiently sustain after MLC left.

The desire to find a more sustainable solution led Clemmer outside the field of education and toward a model first developed for aerospace engineering, known as Collaborative Solution Discovery. In adapting the participatory problem-solving approach for MLC, Clemmer also incorporated research and best practices from math education, business and implementation science, along with the systems engineering tenets on which CSD were originally based.

Chris Sheck, principal of North Torrance High School, says CSD changed his way of thinking. “The ‘compliance’ mindset of coaches and administrators, who offer their ‘solutions’ to teachers in an effort to improve teacher practices and student learning, is inherently flawed,” Sheck says. “CSD values teacher contribution, creativity, fluidity, and real-time instructional decision making. The solutions come from the teachers themselves, and they in turn become the ones who determine necessary adjustments to instructional practices, strategies and activities. When this happens, we see teachers contributory and empowered.”

The ‘compliance’ mindset of coaches and administrators, who offer their ‘solutions’ to teachers in an effort to improve teacher practices and student learning, is inherently flawed. CSD values teacher contribution, creativity, fluidity, and real-time instructional decision making.

Katharine Clemmer

Director of SOE’s Mathematics Leadership Corps

At its core, CSD reimagines problem and solution ownership. Unlike traditional education initiatives, in which teacher and school principals own the math learning problem and the system owns the solution, CSD flips the script: The system owns the problem, and the solution comes from the teachers and principals.

“Traditionally, the emphasis is on teacher accountability and continuous improvement, but we are coming at this from a resilience perspective,” Clemmer explains. “Teachers already do things that work, so rather than going out and buying a textbook, let’s figure out what the system problem is and allow teachers to address it, using their strengths and adapting in real time based on the data they collect. That’s a more sustainable approach.”

This paradigm shift is currently being tested as part of a two-year CSD pilot led by MLC in the Torrance Unified School District, which consists of approximately 25,000 students. An external evaluation by WestEd, a nonprofit research, development and service agency, has concluded that the CSD concept is viable and ready for scale.

“Finally, an innovative answer for schools and districts who understand that implementing yet another program is not the answer for students to learn at high levels,” says Kati Krumpe, chief academic officer for Torrance Unified School District. “CSD provides an avenue for teachers to be the experts and have a voice as equal contributors.”

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