Giving Compass' Take:

• Alex Zimmerman reports that some schools in New York are encouraging elementary teachers to become math specialists to offer students a subject expert, but a study shows that specialization may hurt student outcomes. 

• How can philanthropy support further research on this subject? How can schools gather the best data and information to inform their policies? 

• Learn why it may be a good idea for elementary school teachers to stay with the same class between grades. 

When Nicole Lent’s principal asked her to give up teaching a single class of students in favor of teaching math across her Bronx elementary school, she was skeptical.

Would her relationships with students suffer? Would students seamlessly adjust to learning from a larger group of teachers with different routines? And most of all, would P.S. 294 students do better at math?

More than two years into the shift, part of a sweeping city experiment in overhauling how elementary school students are taught math, Lent says she is confident the changes are paying off. So, too, are city officials who are expanding the initiative.

But two new pieces of research suggest that the city’s approach — a crucial piece of its plan to get all students ready for algebra in middle school — might be misguided. The studies, which examine “departmentalization” efforts in other places, raise questions about whether the rapidly expanding city program that encourages schools to departmentalize fifth-grade math could be doing more harm than good.

The theory behind departmentalization is that even in elementary school, students should benefit from having math teachers who know their subject and have deep experience teaching it.

A study recently published by the peer-reviewed American Economic Review found that students perform worse on both high- and low-stakes tests after elementary school teachers specialized in subjects including math.

Read the full article about elementary teacher subject specialization by Alex Zimmerman at Chalkbeat.