PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island must adopt a clear, cohesive approach to math education throughout all grade levels and across all school districts if it is going to improve its dismal performance in this key area, a team of researchers yesterday told participants at the state’s second mathematics summit.

Right now, districts, schools and, in some cases, individual teachers decide what is taught — and not taught — in math classes, with troubling results.

On the statewide math test administered for the first time last year, about 80 percent of high school juniors failed to score proficient. Rhode Island students also fare poorly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with large numbers of low-income, black and Hispanic students failing to demonstrate proficiency on the test, which is administered in eighth grade.

In response to the troubling scores, Governor Carcieri and education officials convened a math summit in May to discuss the issue and generate ideas about how to address it. Yesterday at Rhode Island College, more than 200 local educators — teachers, curriculum coordinators, school administrators, higher education faculty and Department of Education officials — discussed a plan to improve math education on a statewide level, not just in each district or school.

“You need to figure out why Rhode Island is underperforming in every subcategory of students,” said Uri Treisman, executive director of the Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, a national research center in education policy and research. “Why are you so much better at serving the advantaged kids … but not at serving the poorest kids? This will probably lead to some painful, private discussions.”

The Department of Education is considering hiring the Dana Center to help develop a consistent approach to math instruction from kindergarten through grade 12, said Mary Ann Snider, the department’s director of assessment and accountability. About $200,000 has been set aside for the possible collaboration.

“There are excellent things going on in our state,” Snider said. “The problem is we don’t have a shared vision and foundation on which all these good things can be placed.”

The department gathered feedback from districts that participated in the first math summit — involving 31 of the state’s 36 districts — and learned that while some schools offered support for struggling students and professional development for teachers, others did not, Snider said.

Providence, the state’s largest district, with 24,000 students, and one of the lowest performing, has no defined curriculum in place and is only now addressing this major obstacle to improving student performance, said Sharon Contreras, Providence’s chief academic officer.

Since June, Providence has been working with the Dana Center to align its math and science classes with the state’s grade-level expectations and is developing curricula, Contreras said. The district has a one-year, $1-million contract with the center, and plans to extend the deal a year, so similar work can be done in English Language Arts, social studies, technology and the arts.

State officials, and the researchers from the Dana Center, stopped short of calling for a statewide math curriculum that would require specific textbooks — a concept that local districts have long opposed. Instead, they advocate a common vision for math instruction based on grade-level expectations and a shared understanding of the rigor and the order mathematical concepts should be taught.

jjordan@projo.com