The VA DOE has reported today that the SOL data available on it’s web site may not be accurate due to a processing error. The Assessment Section of the School Report Card has been closed pending adjustments.
We will update you when the correct scores are available.
Categories: TERC Investigations
Two Thumbs Up for VA Students!!!
In a recent US Dept of Education report entitled, Achievement Gaps: How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Education Progress, Virginia was recognized for it’s accomplishments in closing the achievement gap.
The press release on the VA DOE web site quotes State Superintendent Patricia Wright as stating, “Closing these gaps will require the continued commitment of educators, parents and community leaders to high standards and accountability. The progress cited in today’s report provides encouragement that we can eliminate historic disparities even as we seek to raise the achievement of all students.”
Two Thumbs up for Virginia students!!!
Categories: TERC Investigations
Is Discovery Learning a Bust, and
Has PWC Blown it By Embracing Discovery Learning?
Several years ago Prince William County Schools (PWCS) adopted a mathematics program called Investigations in Number, Data, and Space as it’s elementary math program. PWCS is currently pushing Connected Mathematics into the Middle Schools. Both of these programs are based on an instructional philosophy which concludes that students’ learn best when they discover knowledge on their own – a philosophy which is commonly referred to as discovery, or constructivist, learning.
The current trend in extending the tenets of discovery learning to mathematics can be traced back, to an extent, works published in the 60’s. Researchers noted that children learn things easily outside of school when they discover it themselves, while learning in a school environment takes a lot of effort and work. They theorized that if schools duplicated the “outside of school” environment, students would learn more in less time with better retention and greater depth of understanding.
Whole Language was one of the offshoots of this approach to learning. After years of suffering the reading wars, Congress commissioned studies to determine how children learn to read. The results of those studies brought about the more balanced reading instruction we see today where phonics is one of the pillars on which a sound reading program rests.
Now we find ourselves in the midst of the Math Wars, with PWC on the front lines. Several Years ago the National Institutes of Child Health convened studies to ascertain how children learn math and what contributes to math learning disabilities. One such study is currently in it’s 6th year and has reported some of it’s conclusions. Dr Dave Geary recently published an article, based on those studies, (see here) in which he concluded that some things, like talking and walking, are inherent biological functions which humans are genetically designed to develop, while other functions, like reading and math, aren’t inherent and are needed only because society demands them.
Geary’s research indicates that these non-inherent functions (which he refers to as biologically secondary knowledge) aren’t learned the same way that inherent functions are learned; that discovery and self learning, the primary means by which children learn to talk and walk aren’t the most effective means of teaching children to read or write or understand and perform mathematical calculations.
Geary’s study concludes that math and science instructional programs need to include direct instruction and practice if we want our children to learn math and science.
Yet in the fall PWCS will be officially extending it’s discovery based math program to 5th grade and officials in PWCS are working diligently to unofficially implement it’s discovery based math program, Connected Math, in the middle schools. You have to wonder why the county would continue these programs, when the evidence suggests that these programs, while engaging to our children, don’t actually teach them math.
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With thanks to Elizabeth Carson of NYC HOLD and Dan Dempsey of The Math Underground for bringing this research to my attention.
Categories: Connected Mathematics · Special Education · TERC Investigations
Children Learn by Practicing
That comes as no surprise to most parents. But trends in education in the last 15 years, especially in math, demonstrate that this statement is nothing short of astonishing.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Over thousands of years, humans have evolved to naturally understand things like facial expressions and social interactions. But a University of Missouri researcher has found there is an ever-widening gap between what humans can naturally learn and what they need to learn to be successful adults in today’s modern society. Schools have traditionally helped bridge the gap between evolution and new knowledge, but in the U.S. more may need to be done.
“Schools need to push children to learn things that they do not do naturally, which is more important as our knowledge of the world continues to expand,” said David Geary, Curators’ Professor of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. “Learning is not always going to be fun and children should not expect it to be. Attempting to engage children by making activities fun, causes those activities to become more similar to what students are already doing naturally and can limit new learning.”
Geary found that one reason U.S. students may be behind students in other countries in subjects like science and math is because American schools have moved away from traditional practices where students learn information through repetition. Instead, U.S. schools often use more group and social interactions to teach topics that can be challenging.
Dr Geary in part of a 10 year program of study on Mathematics and Science Cognition and Learning, Development, and Disorders through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. According to his biography, “ The objectives of this program are to explore the critical genetic, neurobioligical, cognitive, linguistic, socio- cultural, and instructional factors that influence normal and atypical development in math and science.“ The study is in it’s sixth year identifying the mechanisms that contribute to mathematical learning through algebra and the mechanisms that underlie learning disabilities in mathematics.
I guess drill and kill wasn’t so bad, after all …..
You can read the full article here (H/T to NYHOLD).
Categories: General Education · Special Education
PWC Schools have the 2009 SOL scores for their students. The VA DOE will be releasing summarized scores for each school and district in the state to the general public in a few weeks (generally in the early to mid part of August). Parents should be receiving their child’s scores around the same time.
If you’re interested in obtaining your child’s scores before the “official” DOE release, you can contact your child’s school.
Categories: TERC Investigations
Prince William County gives the SDMT to randomly selected 1st and 2nd grade students each Spring. The County began administering the test when Investigations was mandated county-wide.
PWC students continue to struggle with computational fluency in both Grades 1 and 2. Computational fluency is one of Investigations noted weaknesses and our students scores on the computation portion of the SDMT reflect that weakness.
Grade 1
For Grade 1, PWC student performance on the concepts and applications portion of the exam improved again this year. The overall percentage correct in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 76%, 79%, and 80%, respectively. Accordingly, PWC’s national percentile rank for Grade 1 concepts and applications has also increased.
Our Grade 1 scores for computation did not fare as well. The percentage correct for computation for grade 1 students in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 70%, 78%, and 70%.
PWC national percentile rank for Grade 1 remains slightly above average in the 54th percentile overall (56th for concepts / applications and 54th for computation). That means that PWC students overall did as well as or better than 54% of other Grade 1 students across the nation.
Grade 2
For Grade 2, PWC student’s scores for both both concepts / applications and computation declined. The overall percentage correct for concepts / applications in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 89%, 92%, and 85%, respectively. The overall percentage correct for computation in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 85%, 96%, and 83%, respectively.
Accordingly, PWC’s national percentile rank for Grade 2 in concepts / applications and computation were down as well. Unlike Grade 1, where the percentile rank for concepts / applications and computation are approximately the same, for Grade 2 there is a sharp gap between the national percentile rank for concepts / applications and computation.
The national percentile ranks for Grade 2 in concepts / applications in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 54th, 62nd, and 61st respectively. The national percentile ranks for Grade 2 in computation in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were 45th, 47th, and 47th respectively.
This means that while our 2nd grade students perform above average nationally in concepts and applications, they perform below average nationally in computation.
Increases from Grade 1 to Grade 2
PWC claims that the increase in test scores from Grade 1 to Grade 2 is evidence of the success of Investigations, and scores from Grade 1 to Grade 2 do continue to increase. Students in 1st grade in 2007 and 2nd grade in 2008 saw their percent correct increase from 73% in 2007 to 90% in 2008. Students in 1st grade in 2008 and 2nd grade in 2009 saw their percent correct increase from 79% in 2008 to 84% in 2009.
However, PWC fails to mention that Grade 2 scores are consistently higher than Grade 1 scores, both in PWC and nationally. In 1st grade 70% correct puts you in the 54th percentile nationally, while in 2nd grade 83% correct puts you in the 47th percentile nationally. How much of the increase in the percentage correct from Grade 1 to Grade 2 can be attributed to Investigations versus the inherently higher scores in 2nd grade, is undetermined.
Conclusions
Because the SDMT has only been administered since Investigations was mandated, any conclusions about increases in student performance as a result of Investigations can not be substantiated. Unlike students nationally, PWC students continue to struggle with computational fluency. Without some sort of intervention, those struggles will only be further compounded as our children advance.
Categories: TERC Investigations
The 2009 SDMT Scores are in for PWC. As before, they present a mixed bag of results with some scores up and others down. They also raise more questions than answers, questions I hope the school board asks of school administration.
Click here for PWC-2009-SDMT results.
This article provides the scores only, with questions and discussion presented in a later article. Because the scores are a little confusing, here are some definitions and background.
The SDMT was mandated when Investigations was selected. In 2007 it was given for the first time to all 1st and 2nd grade students. In 2008 and 2009 it was given to a “randomly selected representative sample of 1st and 2nd grade students”.
SDMT results are presented as a raw score, national percentile rank, and stanine.
Students are tested on two broad categories, concepts & applications and computation, and results are presented for these categories and their sub-tests.
Categories: TERC Investigations
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Categories: TERC Investigations
