Archive for the ‘math’ Category

Here is one of the questions that shocked parents in Gwinnett. (AJC Photo)

The AJC has a long, thoughtful piece about what can be learned from the controversy over the slave questions given to third graders in a Norcross elementary school math class.

The piece begins with questions about how  such bizarre questions could have been conceived, no less handed out to third graders, at Beaver Ridge Elementary, a Gwinnett school where 88 percent of students are either black or Hispanic and half the staff is non-white.

(Still no word on the fate of the teacher. Gwinnett has not responded to my most recent questions about the teacher’s employment status but earlier had refuted reports that he has been let go for creating the two slave-related math questions.)

According to the story:

Christopher Braxton said he was helping his son Nicholas with homework like always when Nicholas stumbled upon the slave math word problems meant to re-enforce a history lesson about ex-slave and …

Continue reading Is slavery controversy a teachable moment? If so, what is the lesson? »

I listened two webcasts this week on the new NAEP 4th and 8th grade math and reading results for 21 urban districts that have volunteered to be part of pilot that highlights their performance. The NAEP tests serve as a common yardstick to compare district performance.

Atlanta is one of the districts that chose to be part of the pilot from its inception in 2002/2003. (The National Assessment of Educational Progress is often called the nation’s report card and is historically only released at the state level.) Atlanta has been praised for showing the most improvement since the trial began, a fact mentioned by two speakers today.

Atlanta showed its greatest growth in the earliest years of the trial. While it showed progress this time on math, it stagnated on reading, as did most of the districts and the nation as a whole.

Based on the results, we ought to be looking at how Austin and Charlotte are teaching math — they are not only outperforming their big city peers, they are …

Continue reading On Nation’s Report Card, Atlanta improves in math, stagnates on reading »

Eric Spiegel is the U.S. CEO of Siemens Corporation, a global energy and engineering company with operations in 190 countries. This piece runs Monday in the AJC Opinion pages;

By Eric Spiegel

Some of America’s most promising students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) recently competed in the nation’s premier math and science competition at Georgia Tech. Every year, our company hosts the competition to support the best and brightest high school students – the next great innovators.

They aren’t the ones I worry about. As the CEO of a company that employs more than 60,000 employees in all 50 states, I’m much more concerned with those who shudder at the thought of algebra or chemistry; those who don’t realize that in the new economy, even in fields you wouldn’t expect, STEM proficiency is essential.

Over the past decade, STEM job openings grew three times faster than non-STEM jobs. STEM workers are expected to earn, on average, 26 percent more than their …

Continue reading CEO: Math and science are the ticket to good jobs and to America’s prosperity »

The National Center for Education Statistics hosted a live webinar this morning in which Commissioner Jack Buckley shared the results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress assessments in mathematics and reading at grades 4 and 8.

I was on the call, which revealed some  good news for Georgia in its first few minutes: A map was flashed with the nine states that showed increases in fourth grade NAEP math scores in 2011 compared to 2009. Georgia was among the states, although we remain below the national average.

However, Georgia had no significant change in 8th grade math scores in 2011 compared to 2009. There was also no significant change in 4th grade reading performance in Georgia.

One of the pleasures of NAEP webcasts is listening to former Massachusetts Education Commissioner David Driscoll, who is on the National Assessment Governing Board. He is a very articulate and straightforward guy.

In today’s press call, Driscoll noted that 2011 was a …

Continue reading Georgia improves on NAEP. Why is reading falling behind nationally? »

As a math teacher told us earlier this week on the blog, Georgia is moving away from its experiment with integrated math in its adoption of the Common Core state standards.

What’s interesting to me is that the reasons cited in the AJC story today echo the initial objections to the switch by many parents — that Georgia was out of step with other states in its math program and that led to problems with transfers and even with college applications.

And, of course, there were those spikes in failure rates in some districts. Yet, other systems reported good results from teaching math in a more integrated fashion.

Could it be that the main problem with the math switch was that teachers were not trained?  There are folks at DOE who have told me that the money was not there for the depth of training that was necessary and that the rollout was undermined as a result.

In his post, the math teacher stressed that the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards is not Algebra 1, Geometry, …

Continue reading Math: Getting in step with rest of country. Was this fling with integrated math doomed from the start? »

Georgia math classes will now be following the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards, but it is not the traditional path of old.

A math teacher sent me this informative e-mail, which I am sharing with the author’s permission. In essence, the teacher reports that state school chief John Barge has been telling groups that Georgia will follow “traditional” math in its Common Core Georgia Performance Standards — the merger of our state curriculum with the new Common Core State Standards.

But the teacher cautions that the “traditional” math path should not be viewed as  “going back to” how math was taught in the past, and that integration remains.

And the teacher says the same problems with math remain.

(Here is an earlier Get Schooled blog on this issue.)

Here is the teacher’s note:

Dr. Barge has announced to various groups over the past two days that Georgia will follow the “traditional” path for the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards in High School Math. I am sure …

Continue reading Math teacher: Whatever math is called, too much content, too little review. »

A new report finds high school achievement lagging in many states, including Georgia.

While state test scores have increased in high schools, as they have done in elementary and middle schools, the Center on Education Policy found that high school students show less progress than students at the other two levels. Gaps between groups of high school students have widened at the advanced achievement level in many states, including Georgia, one of a dozen states with a drop in students scoring at the advanced level in math.

(Before we put all the blame on the new math approach in Georgia high schools, please note that the period studied was 2004 to 2009.  Georgia introduced its controversial integrated math –  math taught using a multidisciplinary approach that draws on concepts taught in algebra, geometry and statistics simultaneously to solve problems — in high schools in 2008-2009 with that year’s entering freshman class. Those students also were exposed to integrated …

Continue reading New study: Fewer high school students in Georgia scoring at advanced levels in math »

High school students in Georgia continue to grapple with the state’s more challenging math curriculum, according to End of Course Test results released this afternoon by the state Department of Education.

Passing rates improved on seven of the eight 2011 spring End-of-Course Tests, including Math II, a course combining algebra, geometry and statistics. But 45 percent of students who took the Math II test failed.

Thirty-nine percent of students failed the EOCT in Math I, a prerequisite to Math II that covers algebra, geometry and statistics.

This is the release from the state DOE on End of Course Test results.

The results of the Spring 2011 Georgia End of Course Tests (EOCT) show student improvement in seven of eight tests. In comparing the results to Spring 2010, students demonstrate significant improvement in Biology, Physical Science, and U.S. History. EOCT scores also improved for Ninth Grade Literature, American Literature, and Economics.

The percentage of students who …

Continue reading State releases End of Course Test results. Math still a challenge. »

The state released encouraging statewide CRCT results today with system and school results coming later.

Please note in the release below John Barge’s comment on how Georgia will be able to compare its student performance to other states once we move to Common Core and its companion testing. I assume that we will see a phase-out of the CRCT and a move to the new test series being developed by a consortium of states, including Georgia.

Also notable is the rise in math scores in fifth and eighth grades. Statewide, 87 percent of Georgia’s fifth graders passed the CRCT for math this year, compared to 82 percent last year. The passing rate on eighth grade math jumped four percent, to 78 percent.

I have been reading teacher comments on this blog long enough to wonder about these basic questions about the CRCT: What does CRCT performance tell us about our students?  A testing expert once told me that states have to do a better job showing parents what a score means for their child, …

Continue reading State reports rise in most CRCT scores, including math. Is rise significant? »

I threw the question out last week about how students fared on the Georgia High School Graduation math test and found an array of responses. Some posters reported great scores for their own schools.

But district scores released today indicate a drop in math scores overall in the metro area.

The AJC has a database where you can check math, science, social studies and English scores. My own district did well, with 99 percent passage on science, 90 on math, 96 on English and 91 social on studies. Overall, 84.4 percent of students passed all parts of the test, giving Decatur City Schools spot 18 on the statewide ranking.

The metro’s highest pass rate was Cherokee with 90 percent of its students passing all parts of the test. The lowest passing rate in the metro area was Atlanta Public Schools, with 58 percent passing.

Today’s AJC story reports:

District-by-district scores released Friday showed fewer metro students passed the math portion of the exam, which is one of five parts …

Continue reading Cherokee leads metro in grad test scores; Atlanta lands last »