What Type of Test Does Your State Law Require?

[mmm4444bot]

I went to a meeting at the college today. (Fall quarter begins Monday.) The meeting was fairly grim, if you judge by the expressions on the faces of those listening.

I believe it was the end of April, 2007, when the Washington State legislature rushed out a change in law that eliminated the math and science sections of the Washington State Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) from the legal requirements for high-school graduation. (The WASL is a sequence of criterion-reference exams in reading, writing, mathematics, and science that takes place in grades 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7, 8, and 10.) For well under one fourth of sophomores, the final WASL experience is a non-standardized, comprehensive four-hour statewide exam; for the rest, there are up to five opportunities to eliminate their WASL deficit(s) before the end of their senior year.

The emergency change in law was deemed necessary after it became obvious that nearly 50% of Washington State high-school seniors would be starting summer 2007 without a diploma because they failed to meet the math and science requirements. (I think the failure rate for the science section was projected to be 63%; I don't remember the corresponding math-section statistic at that time.)

At today's meeting, I skimmed over some statistical reports on the expected levels of math remediation for Washington State graduates entering two- and four-year colleges this year. It appears that the number of graduates ill-prepared for college-level mathematics is worse than when I left four years ago. At the college, they are faced with trimming curriculum throughout the college-level courses because they cannot fund courses with less than 20 students enrolled (figure resulting from projected strict placements) and there are no resources at all for additional remediation courses, tutoring services, or self-help library and take-home materials. (Fall quarter offers 73 math courses; 49.3% are remedial.)

Throughout the meeting, I recalled looking over legislative transcripts last year on the sessions covering the WASL math-and-science "crisis". It seemed, at the time, that politicians are math illiterates themselves. The one fact that kept nagging me is that there is no way to compare Washington State students with students in other states based on WASL scores.

School starts on Monday. My main exposure to students Fall quarter will be checking daily homework assignments and grading exams in beginning algebra, but I will probably be seeing the worst of the strugglers face-to-face because the two instructors I'll be working with have limited office hours (about 15 hours per week each). Anyway, I'm trying to fortify myself to deal with student apathy once more ... but I'm starting to drift off-topic here ...

I've been wondering what types of other mathematics exams take place in this country for high-school graduation.

Does your state have an exam-score requirement in mathematics for high-school graduation?

Is there any way for your state to determine how its students perform in mathematics compared to students in other states?

Cheers,

~ Mark

 

[stapel]

Is there any way for your state to determine how its students perform in mathematics compared to students in other states?

Yes; use nationally-normed tests, such as the Stanford, the Iowa Basic Skills, etc. Of course, more and more states are moving to using "in house" "tests", which make these sorts of measurements harder and harder to make.

Eliz.

"Keeping an Eye on State Standards"

 

[mmm4444bot]

... more and more states are moving to using "in house" "tests", which make these sorts of measurements harder and harder to make.

Thanks for responding, Elizabeth.

I checked out the link that you posted. Then I found the following sentiment from a report titled, "The Proficiency Illusion", which seems to underscore the fact that proficiency in one state means something very different than it does in others.

"America is awash in achievement 'data,' " the report says, "yet the truth about our educational performance is far from transparent and trustworthy."

Not good.

~ Mark :|

PS: I just checked state records for last year's sophomores (class of 2010). It remains that less than 50% pass the math WASL.

 

[stapel]

When we lived in Arizona, my son took the third-grade state test. (His age put him in the "first-grade" cohort, but we homeschool, so he could go at his own speed.) He finished the math portion of the state test (for which three hours were allotted) in forty-five minutes, and, as he left the testing center, was literally singing and dancing about how "fun" and "easy" the questions had been. (I was so embarassed!) He had aced the test, getting every question right. But so many of the state-schooled students "flunked" the assessment that the state educators rewrote the test again and lowered the bar again, so as to show "progress" for the next academic year.

We haven't bothered with state "tests" since. :roll:

Eliz.