Schools Given Grade on How Graduates Do

[alp227]

Hunching over her notebook at Borough of Manhattan Community College, Sharasha Croslen struggled to figure out what do with the algebra problem in front of her: x2 + 2x – 8 = 0.

It was a question every ninth grader is expected to be able to answer. (For those who have erased the ninth grade from memory, the answer is at the end of the article.) But even though Ms. Croslen managed to complete three years of math and graduate from high school, she did not know how to solve for x.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” she said during a break from her remedial math course, where she has spent the last several weeks reviewing arithmetic and algebra. “I know this is stuff I should know, but either I didn’t learn it or I forgot it all already.”

In most school systems, what happens to students like Ms. Croslen after they obtain their diplomas is of little concern. But the New York City Department of Education acknowledges that despite rising graduation rates, many graduates lack basic skills, and it is trying to do something about it.

This year, for the first time, it has sent detailed reports to all of its high schools, telling them just how many of their students who arrived at the city’s public colleges needed remedial courses, as well as how many stayed enrolled after their first semester. The reports go beyond the basic measure of a school’s success — the percentage of students who earn a diploma — to let educators know whether they have been preparing those students for college or simply churning them out.

The city’s analysis, which it intends to reproduce every year, comes as policy makers nationwide have been calling for higher standards for schools. Most states have committed to adopting a “common core” of what each student should learn in each grade, and in New York, state education officials recalibrated their scoring of standardized tests this year, saying that the bar for passing had fallen too low.

Full article (and the answer to that basic algebra question LOL) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/education/10remedial.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[LWolf]

1. Back when I taught 3rd grade, my 3rd graders could have solved that one.

Not because they knew a formal process, but because they knew what a variable was, their number sense was strong, and they had multiple strategies in their tool boxes to help them attack problems.

I don't teach math to my middle schoolers, but I've been shocked at their low level of skills. It comes from districts adopting "scripted" curriculums and/or texts that don't know how to present concepts in ways that allow students to build strong number sense at an early age. Instead, it's very rote: drill and kill.

In my opinion, of course. ;)

[knitter4democracy]

2. In Michigan, we use the Chicago method to teach math.

No wonder our scores are low--it's a terrible way to teach math. It's all about a snippet here, a little bit there, with nothing to tie the concepts together, very little drill and practice, and all about discovering math every single time you deal with it. It's bizarre.

Our math teachers in the alternative high school where I teach are constantly fighting it. They know it doesn't work, but that's the system everyone in the state has to use. They're constantly frustrated.

[LWolf]

3. The U.S. has generations of people

in which much of the population fears math. I've always thought it was because we are raised on drill and rote memorization, without understanding the concepts and system that lie beneath facts and procedures.

[knitter4democracy]

4. The obverse of that is true, too, though.

If everything is fairly conceptual and never really connects or makes sense, then math is still scary. It makes no sense and doesn't seem to apply to real life.

After almost 20 years of the Chicago method, we still have kids who can't add, subtract, multiply, or divide. We still have high school students who don't understand fractions at all, let alone percents, and while they can sometimes do seriously higher-level math (stuff that used to be taught only in 300-level math classes in college), they often can't explain it or then turn around and balance an equation. It's very frustrating.

[PittsburghKid]

5. Bad Attitudes

I tutor math (and a few other subjects), and one of the problems I have seen both in my experiences as a tutor and from when I was a student is that many teachers hate math. This is especially true of upper-level elementary teachers, who teach all core subjects but must teach math at a higher level (if you haven't seen what they do in fifth grade lately, I recommend checking it out--it sure isn't just basic arithmetic anymore).

Bad attitudes are often blamed on parents, but teachers too need to remember to keep a positive attitude about subjects they don't especially like. I've tutored kids on stories I don't care for but I never let the children know that I'm not a fan of the book. With math, one bad teacher can cause a great problem. I had this problem in fifth grade--the teacher even admitted to us on the last day of school that she hated math, was never good in math, and did a poor job teaching the class. There were about 22 kids or so in that class. From what I remember, only a few went on to take the higher level maths in high school--I remember the few survivors and I talking about those days in senior year prob/stat.

Methods are also a bit of a problem. In my college teaching methods class, we discussed how math is done in Japan--the problem solving method. While I do believe in drill on basic facts, as speed is important when simple arithmetic is no longer the main concept (i.e. long division, algebra classes), I also think we need to focus more on having the children solve the problems with their minds, not through spoon-fed instruction.

This is my first post here, so if I'm doing anything wrong please holler!