Math Resources Student

Majority of Charles schools falls short in MSA

Sixteen of 29 Charles County middle and elementary schools failed to meet state progress goals, but school officials said they remain confident in student gains.

Wednesday, the Maryland State Department of Education released results for the Maryland School Assessment, a test given to students in grades 3 through 8 in math and reading to satisfy requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The law requires that not only do all students need to reach set objectives, but all subgroups of race, gender and special education and economic status also must meet required objectives.

Charles County Schools Superintendent James E. Richmond said Wednesday that as the deadline approaches for getting every student proficient by 2014, the bar rises higher, making it more difficult to get all students to achieve.

For example, middle schools had to have 85.6 percent of students proficient in reading to meet the goal, called Adequate Yearly Progress, this year. Next year, the percentage they need to reach will rise to 90.4.

Likewise in math, middle schools had to reach 78.6 percent proficiency and next year it rises to 85.7.

Elementary schools this year had to reach 85.9 percent proficiency in reading and 84.5 percent for math.

While schools may be reaching 80 to 90 percent proficient, many are missing AYP by just a few students, in some cases just one or two, Richmond said.

He said this is the case in other districts too.

St. Mary’s County reports 11 schools failing to meet AYP this year, but Calvert County had one school miss.

Four of the 16 Charles County schools that missed AYP have missed the mark two years in a row and enter “school in need of improvement” status.

Once a school has missed AYP two consecutive years, it enters the status, which indicates the school must look at where it failed to meet its goals and work to improve programs and add interventions to assist students in order to meet requirements the following year.

A school must meet AYP two consecutive years to come off improvement status.

C. Paul Barnhart Elementary School was one of those four, but gets additional consequences.

Because Barnhart is a Title 1 program school, which means the school gets federal funding for technologies and resources due to it having a high population of economically disadvantaged students, the school also gets placed on school choice status.

According to information from school officials, parents can choose to send their child to another school in the district provided that the other school is not on the improvement list and outperformed Barnhart on the assessments.

Because Math Is Too Important to Leave at School

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Summer is finally here. And for many students, an extended summer break means time spent with friends and family, summer jobs, camps, and well-deserved vacations. Unfortunately, for many students, a break in the school year also means a break from all academic activity, meaning that they could return to school with their math and reading abilities somewhat diminished from just three months earlier. This loss has been well researched , and many education reformers now consider fighting summer loss an important part of any serious education reform agenda .

The effects of summer learning loss in both math and reading have been well documented . Low-income students are especially susceptible to the corrosive effects of long interruptions in academic life. The reasons for this are complex, but it’s safe to say that in many cases low-income students do not enjoy the same academic opportunities (e.g. summer camps, academic retreats, tutors, etc.) as their high-income peers. Add in the fact that many low-income students may go home to text-free zones (lacking books, magazines, and newspapers) and it’s easy to see why the reading skills of so many students deteriorate over the summer months.

In mathematics the picture is even more dismal. Regardless of socio-economic levels, students experience a significant amount of learning loss in math. Though many states and districts offer multiple and intensive summer reading initiatives, too few have undertaken serious efforts to address the loss students experience in math. Admittedly, keeping students engaged in math activities during the summer is more difficult than engaging them in reading. There simply aren’t as many meaningful math resources available for students.

While it’s easy to dismiss summer slide as a fact of academic life, the consequences are profound. The learning loss that occurs each summer has an unfortunate cumulative effect. Add up the amount of learning loss over twelve consecutive summers, and the resulting gap is the difference between those that are prepared for the rigors of college and career and those that are not. It’s easy to see that any hiccup in the trajectory toward college and/or career represents a setback that can make a tremendous difference to where the student ends up.

One possible solution to summer slide would be to increase instructional time, which need not always mean more time in the classroom. Extending the school year can be done in a variety of ways, including providing students with resources that supplement and reinforce the skills and concepts acquired during the school year. In math especially, it is imperative that students continue to stay engaged in activities. Engagement does not necessarily mean learning new concepts and skills. During an academic hiatus, staying engaged in math may simply be brushing up and supplementing last year’s lessons.

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