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Pricey Calculators Give Some Edge In Math Tests

Staples office supply store was a madhouse during the late summer back-to-school shopping crush. There was a ruckus in small electronics. "I heard everybody complaining," said John Azzara of Deer Park. "Mothers were screaming, 'I didn't know the calculator was $90!'"

The calculator, a graphing handheld listed among the necessary class materials for Deer Park High School and others on Long Island, earned a place in the great Regents Math A debate. While the issues of content and grading dominated educators' discussions after an estimated one-third of students in the state failed the exam last June, the use of the pricey calculator that sent some parents into a frenzy raised questions of equity and stirred age-old debates about the use of technology in math instruction.

Students who are able to afford graphing calculators, or who live in districts that provide the tools, have a distinct advantage over other students if permitted to use the calculator on a Regents exam, reported an independent panel of educators last month. The panel, convened by the state Department of Education to evaluate the Math A exam, recommended that the calculator not be allowed during testing until the state can be sure that all children have access to one.

State officials announced early this month that they would continue to look at the issue, while allowing students to use calculators through next August.

The recommendation that calculator use be standardized was "an equity issue," said panel member Alan Tucker, distinguished teaching professor of applied mathematics at Stony Brook University. "There is definitely a problem there."

Tucker said some inner-city districts reported having so few calculators that during the Math A exam, teachers had to pass them from student to student, pausing between each use to clear the memory.

Azzara, who left Staples without buying the recommended TI83 Plus by Texas Instruments, said his son, Joseph, reported only two or three calculators available in his class. "When he needs to do his work he has to wait until one of them is freed," Azzara said.

Deer Park director of mathematics Eva Demyen said there may have been battery problems early in the year so some teachers may have had to share, but that each class now has a set of functional calculators.

Joseph, a sophomore at Deer Park High School, who will take the Regents exam this year, said having a calculator "would help me do math better." He said using a calculator during the test may be hard for him because he is not as adept at using it as the students who use them regularly.

"It was hard to learn," said Tommy Piccione, 15, a student at Levittown High School, "but once you learn, it makes math easier." Piccione, who has his own graphing handheld, said he uses the device for "all the big stuff" and to check his work.

Some educators said the state should be responsible for making calculators available to all students at the appropriate grade levels. "Everybody agrees that equity is important," said Caryl Lorandini, president of the Nassau County Math Teachers Association, "but to deny access to something that kids should be using is not the way to create equity."

The effect of calculators on student achievement has been an issue of contentious debate among math educators for many years.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics officially recommends that calculators be integrated into math programs at all grade levels.

But some in the math community caution that there is the potential for misuse. The classic example is the student who does not understand the basics of mathematics and keys any number multiplied by zero into the calculator. "There are a lot of benefits to teaching math with technology, but inappropriate use can negatively affect the learning of a fundamental skill," said Neil Portnoy, director of math education at Stony Brook.

With only about 35 percent of the nation's high school students owning graphing calculators, according to industry experts, school districts must often bridge the remaining divide.

After searching eBay and finding that a used model of the calculator was selling for $80, Azzara gave up. "I said, I refuse to do this. My family cannot afford a $90 calculator."

Some parents said the decision to make the purchase is less a matter of poverty than priority. "I know it was expensive, but I was all for it," said Deborah Bruno of Levittown. "Parents can go out and buy their kids a $100 pair of sneakers, so why can't you buy a calculator?"

Some districts, particularly those in socio-economically diverse areas, generally write the cost of the calculators into their budgets. "We cannot require our parents or students to buy their own calculator, so we do the next best thing by providing class sets," said Robert Wayne Harris, executive director for curriculum for Freeport schools.

But even though all students have access to the device in class, Freeport teachers feared that the lack of continuity at home could negatively impact student performance, Harris said.

Dave Santucci, director of education for Texas Instruments, said the company is aware that the calculators are a big purchase for some parents, but that they try to add value to the product over time.

Teachers at General Douglas MacArthur High School in Levittown have already implemented another use for the graphing handhelds, even as the calculator's future in Math A hangs in the balance.

During a recent class, students sitting in groups of two or three hooked their calculators up to a wireless box. They tapped in numerical answers to questions and moments later the data was beamed to the teacher's terminal showing how many students got the correct answer.

If Rosemary Kaste, who teaches Math A in the district, sees too many wrong answers, "I'll reach for a different perspective. It's always surprising to me what the kids find confusing." Teachers in other curriculum areas, including foreign language, also use a similar system.

Though the district provided calculators this year, a number of Levittown students have owned their own since eighth grade. Over the years, they have learned to plot graphs, calculate exponents, check their computations as well as download games from the Internet.

If the state decides to prohibit optional use of graphing calculators on the Regents Math A exam, these are the students who may suffer. Experts generally agree that the mismatch of allowing students to use a calculator in class, but not letting them use it on the exam, could put them at a disadvantage.

Students seem to be the only ones at ease with either outcome. "I don't think it makes a difference," Piccione said. "A calculator just makes it easier."


— Nedra Rhone
Pricey Calculators Give Some Edge In Math Tests
Newsday
2003-11-23
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-math1123,0,3014753.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines

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