Columnist Susan Snyder: Doing the math on test standards

It's embarrassing that a quarter of Nevada's high school seniors cannot pass the required math proficiency test.

Come graduation day they will receive certificates of attendance instead of diplomas. They get credit for showing up but no enchilada.

It's easy to pop off and say teachers aren't doing a good enough job of teaching or kids aren't doing a good enough job of learning. Both probably are true in some cases.

But before you nitpick, take a look at the test. There's a sample at www.nsn.k12.nv.us/nvdoe.

If adults had to pass it to drive, we might not need to pave another foot of road until we're ringing in Y3K (maybe we'll even have fireworks).

Granted, the average journalist has the mathematical ability of the average chimpanzee. And the chimp fares better if he uses a calculator.

Still, the test is doomed from the start by the first instruction sentence:

"DO NOT WASTE TIME ON DIFFICULT QUESTIONS."

Surely you can envision a handful of students who read this and say, "Screw it! I'm going to the mall." End of test.

The questions seem to alternate between easy and hard, so students won't get stuck in a hard section and never move forward.

They have to figure percentages, read graphs, do some of those equations where they jumble letters with numbers (the monkey is whomping me now), and do some story problems. The latter can be sticky ones for adults.

For instance, "Mr. Diaz wants to build a fence around his yard. The yard is 140 feet long and 30 feet wide. How many feet of fencing will he need?"

The student must choose from among five answers.

But none address the real issue at hand, which is figuring how many trips Mr. Diaz will make to Home Depot to exchange the post-hole digger and find the right size bolts. And he won't get the amount of fencing he needs because Mrs. Diaz maxed out the Visa that morning getting 35 percent off bedding.

Next question.

"Jill usually makes three free throws out of every five attempted. To simulate her free throws, Jack puts 25 marbles in a bag. He uses red marbles to simulate 'making a free throw,' and blue marbles for a miss. How many blue marbles will Jack use?"

Well, that depends on how many blue marbles Jack's mouth can hold, because that's where Jill is going to shove them the next time Jack cackles as he plucks one from the bag. Not enough information to pick a correct answer. OK, OK, so it's not funny that a quarter of our seniors -- some of whom are college-bound -- are failing a proficiency test so close to graduation.

Next year's math test will be harder because Nevada's course work standards are tougher. Education experts say in states that raised math standards, as few as 11 percent of students passed. No one knows why. Maybe the standards are too hard. But if we lower the bar so students can pass, what are we really teaching them?

Nope. It's not funny. Not funny at all.

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