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Weekly Math UpdatesOctober 3, 2006 Contents:
Utah U-PASS Scores Well folks, the "WOW" scores have been posted from the testing administered last Spring (school year 2005-06). I haven't had time to put them into *really* nice charts for you this week but I did jot down the grade and point increases below. if you want to look up individual school scores the instructions are below. The thing that you won't hear from ASD is the intense pressure we brought upon them last year and how teachers were bringing back more and more traditional math and supplementing Investigations to ensure kids knew their basic facts (the number one reason for the increase). One curious thing is in looking at charter school scores (which are generally much higher than ASD), one anomaly stands out and perhaps one of you charter board folks can help me get the answer to this. Almost universally, the charters had very low math scores for second grade. They were fine at first and then grades above second, but second was well below state averages. I'd speculate that the test questions for second grade were probably quite different than what Saxon students are used to seeing and thus hurt their performance. To view the scores for yourself and see individual schools scores go to: http://u-pass.schools.utah.gov/u-passweb/UpassServlet To look at charter school scores, you have to select the charter in the name of the district and the name of the school and then click GO at the bottom. If a report page comes up that shows just a math percentage for the school, click it to go to the breakdown and annual comparisons. These ASD improvements are hardly "WOW" level.
What "smart" educators at the state ought to be examining is what Cache County Schools are doing. Compare their figures to ASD. Hmmm, smaller district, more local control, not using fuzzy math....nope, nothing to see here folks, move along. ;)
See the media articles below for more information about the number of schools that didn't make the AYP (annual yearly improvement) and what factors go into the rating. California Math Standards * I'm sure some of you have wondered just what exactly California's math standards have over Utah's. There's a few things you should know. First, California has what are called "green-dot" standards which are the core parts of a math program and 85% of the time spent in class should be spent on these concepts. They form the base foundation of math understanding at that grade level. Second, they're crystal clear with a solid example to go with them. To see what I mean, go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/index.asp From this page, click to open one of the chapter 2 PDF's, let's say the Kindergarten to 3rd grade. Scroll down to the 7th page which is the first page of standards for Kindergarten. Note how there's a green circle around standards 1.0 and 2.1? Scroll down through the document and read a few of the standards and see how clear they are. For fun, here's a quick comparison provided by David Wright at BYU. See if you can tell what the Utah standard is really getting at.
David also provided this insightful analysis of exactly why Utah is "a mile wide and an inch deep" and why California is teaching for depth (computation and comprehension).
The bottom line is Utah needs to adopt California's math standards and not wait around for our "think tanks" to create a new system. California has one that works. Parent Comment
Media Articles Provo Daily Herald Districts evaluate 'failures' in testing Weekly Comic Archive: http://www.oaknorton.com/weaponsofmathdestruction.cfm Till next week, Oak Norton |
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