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What's the story with the Vermont Test?
For DAYS, Vermont media has run screaming headlines about how poorly our students did on the state math test. Now we get the admission that maybe the test was inappropriate.
By Molly Walsh
Hillary Chutter-Ames likes math. The 16-year-old junior at Burlington High School is taking honors pre-calculus this year and recently scored a 680 on the math portion of the SAT college admissions test, a score that puts her well above the national average of 515.
Given her strong skills, Chutter-Ames assumed when she sat down last fall to the standardized math test that all Vermont public school juniors must complete, that it would be fairly easy. She was wrong.
The test -- known as the New England Common Assessment -- was tougher than the SAT in her opinion. Chutter-Ames was not shocked to learn this month that only 30 percent of Vermont high school juniors scored at the proficient level or better on the math NECAP.
"I guess I wasn't necessarily surprised," she said. "I thought it was a reasonably challenging test."
High school teachers and administrators around the state are sifting through the NECAP scores that were released earlier this month by the Vermont Education Department.
Writing scores were also low -- only 39 percent were proficient -- but Vermont Education Commissioner Richard Cate singled out the math scores as particularly worrisome. He plans to form a panel to study the scores.
Is the sky falling?
Just how much the NECAP math scores mean is under debate. Teachers and principals are asking: Was the test too difficult, or not? Vermont's math performance relative to other states is solid. Vermont SAT and ACT scores are a few notches above the national average. New Hampshire and Rhode Island -- the only other states that administer the NECAP -- did even worse than Vermont on the 11th-grade math test. Vermont fourth- and eighth-grade scores on the federally required NAEP math test are well above national averages.
Still, these comparisons are no consolation to those who say the national math performance is weak relative to competing nations. Earlier this month, a long-awaited National Math Panel report said American math curriculums have too much breadth and too little depth.
The report recommended that American schools streamline math teaching in kindergarten to eighth-grade to emphasize proficiency with whole numbers, fractions, and aspects of geometry and measurement that are preludes to algebra.
More students should take algebra in eighth grade, the report urged, and Americans should drop the "erroneous" idea that math success is a function more of aptitude than effort.
In the trenches
Meanwhile, in classrooms and high school study halls, the business of teaching and learning math goes on.
Shortly before noon Friday at Burlington High School, students in teacher David Rome's geometry class listened and offered answers as they went over a problem on the white board. It required them to calculate the area of several geometric shapes, use percentage change, multiplication and fractions -- none of which was overly difficult but which in sequence could be easily botched.
On the way to the answer, Rome reinforced various concepts -- such as different ways to calculate percentage change -- and threw in an entertaining "real-life" math application involving calculation of a mandatory service fee at a restaurant.
Most of the students in the class were sophomores who will take the NECAP in the fall.
The 2007 math NECAP scores at Burlington High School matched the state average: 30Thirty percent scored at the proficient level. The school, with about 1,200 students, was also among many high schools in the state that posted an achievement gap: Only 7 percent of lower-income students were proficient on the math test compared with 42 percent of students not receiving free or reduced lunch.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires standardized testing in grades three through eight and one grade of high school. States are allowed to choose their own test. The goal of the education reform law is to reduce achievement gaps and bring all students to proficiency in literacy and math by 2012.
Rome found many of the math NECAP problems overly "wordy" and would like to see more concise questions on the test. He wanted to see a different test altogether, in fact.
Rome was among those who lobbied the Vermont Education Board to choose the ACT college entrance exam as the state's high school assessment. Rome and others argued that students would be invested in the ACT because it's used in college applications.
The state instead chose to customize a test -- the NECAP -- on the grounds that it would better match state standards.
The end result is that some high school students don't see the point when they open the NECAP test, Rome suggested. "I guess if I were sitting there I would be saying what's the purpose of this? That's the problem that the kids have when they are sitting there."
With or without the NECAP, Rome wants to see students succeed in math, he said. He's optimistic. Next year, at least 60 students at BHS will be enrolled in calculus or AP calculus -- the largest number in his experience at the school. More students are taking algebra in eighth grade, which puts them on track for higher-level math, Rome said. He's also seeing improvement in basic math skills among students not enrolled in honors math, though Rome believes more work is needed on this front in elementary and middle schools.
He compared math to building a house. A student who understands the design and the layout still can't do the job without basic skills.
"If you don't know how to swing a hammer or use a saw, what good is it?" he said. "You can't do it."
Extra help
Under pressure to meet standards imposed by No Child Left Behind, many schools have adopted new programs. This year, Burlington High School is piloting a math lab for ninth-graders whose math skills are below grade level. They take their regular math class along with math lab, which meets 45 minutes every other day.
Next school year, the class will be mandatory for students who score below standard on the eighth grade NECAP. The school has already implemented a mandatory supplementary reading class for students who enter ninth-grade below standard.
The early indications suggest the math lab is helping students who are close to grade level standards gain basic math skills needed for them to succeed in algebra and geometry. "We're finding that those students really bump up," said Amy Mellencamp, Burlington High School principal.
— Molly Walsh
Burlington Free Press
2008-03-23
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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