Countywide math scores sound alarm

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Clark County school officials are now facing overwhelming evidence that their K-12 math program must be overhauled: 89 percent of the district’s high school algebra I students failed their final exams this month.

“We know these are poor results,” said Lauren Kohut-Rost, the district’s deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction. “We are also committed to improving and to the success of every one of our students.”

The test results have the district reevaluating how students are assigned to classes and how they are taught once they get there. A new committee, including a nationally recognized math curriculum expert, is meeting to review the district’s policies, procedures and practices, and is to recommend changes.

“We need to continue to set the bar higher,” Kohut-Rost said. “We took the initiative to say, ‘This is the content we expect students to have mastered. And if they haven’t, we need to figure out why.’ ”

School districts across the country are facing similar challenges, as U.S. students continually lag behind their peers in other developed countries when it comes to math skills.

In the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth-largest, the challenges are compounded by an ever-growing population of at-risk students, a continued shortage of qualified math teachers and class sizes among the largest in the nation. The recent cuts to K-12 education funding — $60 million so far from this year’s budget, with projections of $130 million for the next biennium — will also mean fewer dollars for catch-up classes, tutoring and teacher training.

The district developed its in-house end-of-semester math exams with several goals in mind, including determining whether students would be ready for a more difficult high school proficiency exam that debuts in 2010. Also, the district was looking for ways to reduce the percentage of its students who require remedial classes when they arrive at Nevada’s colleges and universities.

The latest figures from across the School District show a slight improvement in scores over the test given at the end of the first semester in January, when 91 percent of the high school algebra I students failed.

Also, 56 percent of the district’s high school geometry students failed the final exam this month, compared with 88 percent on the first semester test. And 78 percent of algebra II students failed the final, compared with 86 percent midyear.

But the improvements in geometry and algebra II may be attributable to the district’s decision not to test about 4,000 geometry students and about 2,000 algebra II students who take alternative versions of the classes. The alternative classes cover the same material but teach it differently, officials say. Including those students in the first round of testing was a mistake, district officials now say. Those classes need exams written to conform to the teaching methods used, officials say.

At the middle school level, 71 percent of pre-algebra students failed the June final exam, compared with a 79 percent failure rate on the first-semester test given this winter. But about 700 students did not take the same final exam, after the district determined they should not have been tested on the first semester’s material. For the middle schools’ algebra I test, 44 percent of the students failed the final exam, compared with 53 percent on the first-semester test. The district tested about 200 fewer students in June.

Perhaps most important, middle school algebra I classes are reserved for the more advanced students, who can earn high school credit if they pass. In high school, because algebra I is a requirement for graduation, student ability in the classes varies more widely.

Kohut-Rost emphasized that the final exam scores do not mean the majority of district students failed math for the academic year. District regulation allows the final exam to count for no more than 20 percent of a student’s total grade.

That’s one of the reasons for the poor showing, said Jack Whitefoot, who will start his 14th year as a district math teacher at the new Desert Oasis High School in August.

“Kids aren’t stupid — they know how hard they have to work,” he said.

When semester and final exams came around, the high school students had already been subjected to a battery of tests, including the all-important proficiency exam.

“By the time they get to this one (test), they’re asking, ‘What are the stakes? Is this going to help me or hurt me?’ ”

“There is blame, but it’s in all different areas,” Whitefoot said. “Some of it may be teachers who don’t follow the curriculum the way they should, some of it is the test itself.”

Bonanza High School found a way to improve. After his students’ dismal January performance, Principal Bart Mangino determined his teachers needed to spend more time preparing students for the test’s format and sometimes unique vocabulary.

“It’s not just about being able to do the math,” Mangino said. “We needed to put more emphasis on reading comprehension and making sure students actually understood the questions that were being asked.”

As a result, Bonanza’s failure rate for algebra I dropped to 87 percent from 96 percent, and to 78 percent from 94 percent in algebra II. The sharpest improvement was in geometry, where 32 percent of the 297 students failed, compared with 90 percent out of 377 in January.

“We had a schoolwide effort, and it paid off,” Mangino said.