TodayCarlisle Area School District: Want to walk? Pass math
District mulls making math proficiency a graduation requirement
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Article RatingNearly half of the seniors at Carlisle Area High School may find themselves in remedial math classes next year if the school board adopts a proposal it is considering.
“When we make this recommendation, we don’t do it lightly,” said Gary Worley, supervising principal of the high school. But, he added, administrators have crafted the proposal carefully and feel it is the best course of action for both the school and the students.
Speaking at the school board’s committee meeting Tuesday, Worley filled in the details of a previously announced proposal to make a “proficient” score on the 11th-grade Pennsylvania System of School Assessment math test a graduation requirement, effective in 2010.
Students who don’t make the grade on the state-required test, which is administered near the end of their junior year, would be required to start their senior year in a “standards-focused” remedial math course.
Last year, Worley said, a little more than 49 percent of juniors scored proficient or better on the test, although in a similar assessment test of the same students early this year, that number jumped to 56 percent.
Board member Paula Bussard said it is scary to think about seeing that many seniors in remedial classes.
“What’s scary is graduating students without basic skills,” board member Fred Baldwin replied.
The board agreed that if students are genuinely not proficient in math, the district has an obligation to do everything it can to address the problem.
Contingency
Anyone who passed a retest in October would be excused from the class, Worley explained, but those who didn’t would be required to pass the class with at least a D average to graduate.
Students who do not pass the course would not be allowed to graduate in the spring, Worley said, but would have to take the class again in summer school to get their diplomas.
The district has also thought about the proposal’s ramifications for IEP students, officials said. For those students, graduation is contingent upon meeting individualized goals, so the requirement could be addressed at that level, Worley said. Possibilities include requiring students to pass Essentials of Math or Connected Math, both of which are current IEP classes, instead of the PSSA test.
Administrators also have an assessment and credit program in mind for students who transfer to the district in their senior year.
Ranking
District officials have said that they are concerned students were not taking the PSSA tests seriously because the results didn’t affect them personally. While linking the math test to a graduation requirement would give students a stake in their scores, officials said, retest results cannot be applied retroactively to increase the district’s PSSA standing.
Worley stressed that the district does not want to see an increase in proficiency mean a decrease in graduation rates. He reminded the board that, as he explained the last time he addressed them, he detailed steps the high school is taking to strengthen its courses and academic support so future classes will be better prepared for the test.
A new idea, presented Tuesday by Kelly Brent, who chairs the math program, would allow the school to offer two or three cumulative years of Integrated Math classes for students who struggled in algebra classes in eighth grade.
“We’d like to try something different,” Brent said, explaining that the school’s current course lineup for such students separates algebra and geometry into different years. By the time they get to the 11th-grade test, which covers both areas, she said, “I feel a lot of it is retention problems.”
Integrated Math wouldn’t go quite as deep as the current classes, she said, but it would cycle through the subject matter more regularly, mixing algebra and geometry and giving students a chance to recall what they have learned. That approach is widely used in Europe, Brent said, and is becoming more common here.
“I think it will really help,” Brent said.
Warning
“Do you feel that the parents and students have been given enough awareness of this change?” Bussard asked. She pointed out that if the requirement went into effect in 2010, it would affect students who are juniors this year and will take the PSSAs in the rapidly approaching spring.
“Students were told at the beginning of the year that there was a possibility that they would be required to be proficient to graduate,” said board President Nancy Fishman. “Meeting the requirement is demonstrating a basic proficiency in math skills -— it’s not advanced math.”
