Math revolution starting in Fayette County?

"I know I'm teaching math at a much higher level now than I ever taught it before, and the students are grasping it more quickly," Cox said.

Jessica Alt, another fifth-grade teacher at Liberty who is using the Singapore method, says some students in her class who were two years below grade level on math when school started last fall scored at or above grade level on a recent test.

"That's almost two years of progress in just four or five months," Alt said.

Teachers admit that adjusting to the totally new system has been tough at times, particularly for older students who had already learned to approach math in more traditional ways. But the educators think scores should really take off in the next few years as more students learn the new system.

"I really think Singapore math is the way to go," said Cox, who has been a teacher for 20 years.

Those are early reports from Fayette County's initial use of the textbook Math in Focus and related teaching methods that have pushed Singapore's students to the top of international mathematics rankings. Read more about the exciting initial results in this great Herald-Leader report.