GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Educators have been worrying about American students’ math performance for decades. 1939 saw the introduction of innovative teaching techniques to some New York City math classrooms: Rather than learning “to compute for the sake of computation,” students learned arithmetic by applying it to baseball statistics, electrical bills, and other real-life situations, “informal, human and vital.”

At the time, some claimed students’ failure in high school math classes could be attributed to Regents exams:

On the high school level, where algebra, geometry, and trigonometry are still rigid, formalized subjects, a 25 percent failure record still exists. Officials have blamed the Regents examinations, in part, for this condition.

The rest of the article is after the jump.

(more…)

About one in six secondary school classes in the United States is taught by a teacher who didn’t major in the subject and isn’t certified to teach it, a new report by the Education Trust concludes.

The problem is even worse in schools with a high percentage of poor students, where more than a quarter of classes may be taught by an “out-of-field” teacher. Middle school classes and math classes are also more likely to be taught by less-expert teachers, the report says.

This is worrisome because previous studies have found that secondary school teachers with more expertise in their content area get better results from students — especially in math.

Bringing it closer to home, New York State does better than the national average in making sure that classes are taught by teachers who know their subjects well, according to the Education Trust report.

Still, a look at more recent data shows that although it has narrowed somewhat, a teacher-qualifications gap persists in New York State. (more…)

At the intersection of earlier discussions of elementary school content knowledge, vocabulary development, and instruction of English Language Learners is P-SELL, Promoting Science among English Language Learners, a curriculum and professional development program in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The program provided three years of workshops for teachers, to build their content knowledge and help them feel more comfortable teaching science. They received all necessary supplies and a hands-on curriculum. Here’s what P-SELL looks like in the classroom:

The children run their tests. They are asked to provide written explanations to a number of questions about the results of the experiment, a task that reinforces their English skills and asks them to put their reasoning on paper.

The students’ background materials include an English-to-Creole vocabulary sheet, which helps them translate such words as magnetism from mayetis in Creole, and charge from chaj or chaje. Though the youngsters mostly converse in English, Ms. Perez recalls hearing words like batri and pozitif (battery and positive) as she moves among the groups, and other dialogue she can’t follow.

She steps in here and there, telling the students to stay on task and to record information from their experiments precisely. “Did the paper clip conduct electricity?” Ms. Perez leans in and asks one group. Yes, the children respond. Then write it down, she says. They won’t be able to summarize their results without that information.

Teacher and students are newly enthusiastic about science — and schools using the program saw improvements in both their science and math test results, compared to similar schools without P-SELL.

Okhee Lee, an education professor at the University of Miami and the principal investigator for this project, stresses that science lessons shouldn’t be seen as taking time away from reading and math instruction. “Our science curriculum reinforces what is taught in other subjects, including mathematics, reading, language arts, and English as a second language,” she told the University of Miami News.

Yesterday, I took an initial look at the Manhattan Institute’s study, “Building on the Basics.” Today, I want to look at Florida’s state science exam, the focus of the study. A common criticism of standardized tests is that they all, to some degree, test reading ability. What does the Science FCAT look like? What skills would you need to perform well on it? I’ve only seen the NYS Science exams, so I decided to download a Florida sample test and take a look. The first thing that surprised me about this test was the reading level, which seemed high. Many of New York City’s fifth graders would (for better or for worse) stumble over sentences like, “Florida has many limestone caves containing formations called stalactites.” I tracked down a site of readability analyzers and entered text from test items.

Question 1: Melissa’s school rings a bell to alert students that it is time to start class. When the bell rings, it vibrates. The use of vibrations to send messages is an example
of which type of energy?

This one ranged from 4.72 to 10.07 in estimated US grade level required to understand it, which certainly calls into question the reliability of the readability analyzers, but also the ability of average 5th graders to understand this question.

(more…)