11th High School Boundary Controversy

Seems the discussions with the 11th High School Boundaries have gotten a bit heated.  Below is a summary of the plans to date.  The graphics on the PWCS web site are difficult to read, and thus, prohibit determining the specific location of each boundary.

The plan calls for risings 9th and 10th grade students to move to their new schools, rising 11th graders to be given a one-time option to move to their new school or remain at the current one, while rising 12th graders remain at their current school.

None of the plans provide a long term solution to overcrowding in the western end of the county.  By 2014 all of the schools in the western end of the county will be above capacity with capacity rising each year.

There are two proposed plans, A and B.

Click here to view the current plans.

Plan A

The boundary for Battlefield is changed such that a few of the communities along 29 south of Haymarket will be assigned to the 11th High School.  Unfortunately the plan posted on the PWCS web site is neither detailed nor clear enough to determine which communities.

The boundary for Brentsville includes students from the rural crescent and Bristow Village.

The boundary for the 11th high school extends across 29 and includes most of the communities to the south of Linton Hall Road.  Several communities from the Haymarket side of 29 are moved from Battlefield to the 11th high school.  The Linton Hall Road communities attending the 11th high school include, but are not limited to: Virginia Oaks and it’s surrounding communities,  Brook Side, Glenkirk, Morris Farms, Kingsbrooke, Bridlewood, Braemar, Saybrook, and Ashely’s Ridge. The boundary appears to end at Route 28.

Stonewall’s boundary doesn’t change significantly.  Victory, Sheffield Manor, Independence, and the communities to the North of Linton Hall Road along Devlin, Sudley Manor, and Wellington Roads will be assigned to Stonewall.  Amberleigh Station, based on the maps on the PWCS web site, appears to be in Stonewall’s district.

Osbourn Park’s boundary appears to be unchanged.

Plan B

Plan B differs from Plan A in that it moves Bristow Village and the communities around it to the 11th High School and keeps a number of the communities on the Haymarket side of 29 at Battlefield.  The boundary for Stonewall is expanded to the north to Pageland Road.  Osbourn Park and Brentsville’s boundaries are unchanged from Plan A.

Gainesville District Scores – 2008 Grade 3

Test scores in Gainesville District schools from 2007 to 2008 are as follows:

Overall, among Gainesville District schools, pass rates decreased in 50% of schools and  increased in 50%.

Among the AYP Subgroups ; pass rates were up in 57%, unchanged in 3%, and down in 40%. Pass rates for each group were as follows:

• Disadvantaged – up in 50%, down in 50%
• Black – up in 80%, down in 20%
• Hispanic – up in 50%, down in 50%
• White – up in 57%, unchanged in 14%, down in 29%
• LEP – up in 50%, down in 50%

Details for each school in Gainesville District are below.

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Alvey

Overall Pass Rate – up 2

Among the AYP groups:

• Black – up 21
• White – unchanged

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond achieved it’s highest pass rate in 2004, 2005, and 2006.  Since 2006 pass rates have trended downward sharply.

Overall pass rate – down 11

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – down 31
• Hispanic – down 20
• White – up 4
• LEP -  down 21

Mountain View

Overall pass rate – down 1

Among the AYP groups:

• White – down 1

Mullen

Scores at Mullen were sharply down in 2005, 2006, and 2007 when compared with 2004.  They rebounded in 2008 to 2004 levels.

Overall pass rate – up 20 (up 1 when compared with 2004)

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – up 25 (up 1 when compared with 2004)
• Black – up 23 (up 3 when compared with 2004)
• Hispanic – up 32 (up 5 when compared with 2004)
• White – up 7 (down 7 when compared with 2004)
• LEP – up 23 (up 6 wen compared with 2004)

Sinclair

Scores at Sinclair reached their high point in 2003  and 2004.  Since then scores at the school have trended up and down, but they have never reached the highs achieved in 2003 and 2004.  Scores took a downward turn in the 2007 school year.   While pass rates are up significantly when comparing 2007 to 2008, the change is not as significant when compared with 2006 scores and are no where close to scores achieved in 2003 or 2004.

Overall pass rate – up 13 (up 2 when compared with 2006)

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – up 16 (down 1 when compared with 2006)
• Black – up 19 (down 1 when compared with 2006)
• Hispanic – up 14 (up 2 when compared with 2006)
• White – up 9 (up 4 when compared with 2006)
• LEP -up 9 (down 1 when compared with 2006)

Sudley

Scores at Sudley took a downward turn in the 2006 and 2007 school years.  While pass rates are up significantly when comparing 2007 to 2008, the change is not as significant when compared with 2005 scores.

Overall pass rate – up 11 (up 4 when compared with 2005)

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – up 16 ( down 7 when compared with 2005)
• Hispanic – up 13 (down 1 when compared with 2005)
• White – up 9 (up 10 when compared with 2005)
• LEP – up 13 (down 1 when compared with 2005)

Tyler

Scores at Tyler peaked in 2003 then dropped slightly and have remained at those slightly lower levels.

Overall pass rate – down 1

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – down 2
• Hispanic – down 5
• White – down 1
• LEP – down 3

West Gate

Scores at West Gate have fluctuated year to year from 2004 with one year up and the next year down.  2008 seems to have been a sharply down year while 2007 was an up year.

Overall pass rate – down 12 (down 5 from 2006)

Among the AYP groups:

• Disadvantaged – down 15 (down 5 from 2006)
• Hispanic – down 16 (down 11 from 2006)
• LEP – down 13 (down 8 from 2006)

2009 VA SOLs

In February the State Board of Education approved the revised Standards for learning for Mathematics.  The revised SOLs are not posted on the Va DOE web site, yet, but are available in the agenda to the State Board of Education February 19 meeting (see Point D Here ).

Develop Math Standards, without Mathematicians?

Is it Time for National Math Standards?

That’s the question asked by Walter Isaacson in this article published in the April 15th edition of Time.

Mr Isaacson concludes that the time has come for National Math and English standards and notes that President Obama has indicated that he agrees with this sentiment.

Secretary Duncan has indicated that he will use the carrots and sticks in the stimulus bill to support voluntary efforts to write national standards and to prod states to adopt them. This process should involve advisory boards that represent employers, college admissions officers, military recruiters, teachers, education scholars and parents. It should also be ongoing, because the standards will have to evolve as the needs of the workplace and global economy do.

I notice that what’s missing from his list of people who should be involved in the process of developing the national mathematics standards are Mathematicians – the people who actually understand and do mathematics every day. If Mr Isaacson wants to advocate for the development of national mathematics standards that are foisted upon schools with hooks to federal funding, then perhaps he ought to at least consider involving those who know the subject best.

What Do College Students Know?

What do College Students Know?

That question was asked by W. Stephen Wilson of JHU a couple of years ago.

Dr Wilson gave his 2006 students the same calculus test that he’d given to his students in 1989.  The Math SAT scores these students had received and the proportion of engineering v/s general studies students was pretty much the same.

What did he discover? Based on the 1989 grading scale  27% of 1989 students earned A’s and 23% earned B’s, while 6% of 2006 students earned A’s and 21% earned B’s.  Based on the 2006 grading scale 52% of 1989 students earned A’s and 26% earned B’s, while 32% of 2006 students earned A’s and 37% earned B’s.  Either way you look at it, fewer 2006 students earned A’s and B’s than 1989 students.

Dr Wilson wondered why and extrapolates his own theory to explain the sharp decline in this article.

His conclusion – the NCTM standards, which advocate the use of calculators by children in K – 12 education, has undermined students learning. The College Boards made made the problem worse when they allowed calculators to be used on the SATs in 1994 because Colleges and Universities no longer had a means of assessing students true mathematical knowledge.

7 Points to a Blended Math Program

In March 2009, the PWC School Board approved a motion stating that PWCS will implement a consistent blended approach to mathematics education and identified SEVEN elements/points to be implemented.

A far more realistic view of the SEVEN points follows (these points have been evident since Math Investigations’ adoption).

This wonderful acronym and description are the creation of Stefanie, a member of http://www.POBMath.com

It’s called FIDIWTS (pronounced “fidiwitz” ).

A formula for school districts on how to handle parents uprisings against reform math programs.

Feign concern – Listen sympathetically and change nothing

Isolate – If complaints persist, tell concerned parents they are in the minority and everyone else is happy with the program

Divide and conquer – If parents organize, offer multiple parent math nights spreading “all is well – don’t worry” vibes

Interest will die down over time – Form a Math Committee to look into things and report back at a later date.

We’re doing something – Put in some band aids – Teachers can supplement as needed, do 10 minute math fact drills, and send home lots of traditional looking work as SOL test dates approach, etc – parents will think that’s adequate enough for mastery

Tell them what they want to hear – Talk about a blended curriculum and change nothing

Show them what they want to see – Send home recognizable homework but continue to promote reform math at school

Repeat as necessary

I’ve seen all 7 in my child’s school. How about you?

11th High School Boundary Discussions

Have been scheduled. The meetings will be at 7 PM:

• April 14 at Battlefield
• April 21 at Brentsville

A link to the proposed boundary plan and other issues can be found
here.

10 Myths about Math Education,

And Why You Shouldn’t believe

them.

This 2005 article by Karen Budd, Elizabeth Carson, Barry Garelick, David Klein, R. James Milgram, Ralph A. Raimi, Martha Schwartz, Sandra Stotsky, Vern Williams, and W. Stephen Wilson casts aside the often repeated and much revered myths math educators like to claim about constructivist math.   There is no evidence to support any of these myths.  None.

Click

here to read the entire article.
• Myth #1: Only what students discover for themselves is truly learned.
• Myth #2: Children develop a deeper understanding of mathematics and a greater sense of ownership when they are expected to invent and use their own methods for performing the basic arithmetical operations, rather than study, understand and practice the standard algorithms.
• Myth #3: There are two separate and distinct ways to teach mathematics. The NCTM backed approach deepens conceptual understanding through a problem solving approach. The other teaches only arithmetic skills through drill and kill. Children don’t need to spend long hours practicing and reviewing basic arithmetical operations. It’s the concept that’s important.
• Myth #4: The math programs based on NCTM standards are better for children with learning disabilities than other approaches.
• Myth #5: Urban teachers like using math programs based on NCTM standards.
• Myth #6: Calculator use has been shown to enhance cognitive gains in areas that include number sense, conceptual development, and visualization.
• Myth #7: The reason other countries do better on international math tests like TIMSS and PISA is that those countries select test takers only from a group of the top performers.
• Myth #8: Math concepts are best understood and mastered when presented “in context”
• Myth #9: NCTM math reform reflects the programs and practices in higher performing nations.
• Myth #10: Research shows NCTM programs are effective.

How did it get this bad?

That’s the question asked by Dr Sandra Stotsky, of the University of Arkansas,in her recently published article entitled “The Negative Influence of Education Schools on the K-12 Curriculum”

Her article challenges constructivism (the theory which underlies Investigations) and social justice theory and the effects those educational philosophies have on what our children are taught and how it’s taught to them.

Her concluding remarks hit the nail right on the head…

We may best interpret the recent mushrooming of both privately and publicly financed tutorial programs (especially in mathematics), the phenomenal growth of home-schooling in the past two decades, and the ever-increasing number of public and private charter schools as forms of parental reaction to the bloated, distorted, or non-existent textbooks that their children now learn from in a haphazard, watered-down, and distorted curriculum.

Labaree tries to make the case that education schools have “no ability to promote progressive practices in the schools” or to control public education. My analysis of a leading grade 11 American literature anthology suggests how insidious their control of public education is. Indeed, education school faculty shape every subject taught in the schools at every grade level through their near monopolistic control, direct or indirect, of the content and pedagogy in the textbooks that teachers and administrators use in our public schools, whether or not they train them.

To salvage a failing public school system, we need to remove de facto control of the content of the K-12 curriculum from education schools as soon as possible.

We can remove their control over teacher training by transferring control of teacher preparation in core subjects and the content of these subjects to discipline-based experts at non-profit independent centers or institutes with principled intellectual and civic goals. We can also require educational textbook publishers to use these academic experts as senior authors or consultants for all school textbooks.

Voices are beginning to call for the dissolution of our public school system—a logical result of the increasingly negative influence of education schools on the quality of the curriculum and instruction in it. That influence will continue until their direct control of educator preparation and indirect control of the content and pedagogy in school textbooks is removed.

After reading her article, consider this – PWC currently has 26 teachers in a 2 year graduate level program at George Mason University training them to the TERC specialists.  Those teachers expect to be promoted to TERC Math Specialists when their training is completed.  They expect that they will be relieved of classroom responsibilities and will serve as TERC resources for the schools they are assigned to.

Those 26 classrooms they vacated will have to be filled with new teachers.  The salary for 26 new teachers will cost us about $1.2 million more per year.  All so that we can have 26 teachers who are trained to be TERC specialists.

2008 Grade 3 SOL Pass Rates

2008 was the first year the county-wide Investigations program hit an SOL test year.  After 3 years of Investigations, overall pass rates were unchanged at 90%.  Pass rates were up at 36% of schools, unchanged at 9%, and down at 56%.

Details for each of the AYP Subgroups are below.

Disadvantaged Student pass rate

• Dropped 2% overall.
• Up at 7% of schools, unchanged at 30%, down at 63%

LEP Student pass rate

• Dropped 3% overall
• Up at 29% of schools, unchanged at 11%, down at 60%

Black Student pass rate

• Up 2% overall
• Up at 52% of schools, unchanged at 14%, down at 33%.

White Student pass rate

• Unchanged overall
• Up at 45% of schools, unchanged at 15%, down at 40%.

Hispanic Student pass rate

• Down 3% overall
• Up at 34% of schools, unchanged at 7%, down at 56%.

Detailed reports for each school are in the articles for each district.