The White River High School PTSA recently learned that math testing changes made by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will significantly and adversely affect current freshmen and sophomore advanced math students. We think parents need to know what’s happening.
While students will take reading and writing tests similar in format to the WASL testing system, math is assessed with end-of-course exams in algebra and geometry. This change does not apply to current juniors and seniors, but does apply to current freshmen and sophomores. Students taking algebra in ninth grade and geometry in 10th grade will simply take tests at the end of the year in those courses.
The problem is that not all students take algebra as ninth-graders and geometry as 10th-graders.
Current sophomores who excelled in math during middle school were placed directly in geometry as freshmen and are now in the advanced algebra/trigonometry course. The new testing system requires that these sophomores as well as freshmen enrolled in geometry take the state’s end-of-course make-up exams for algebra and geometry in May 2011.
This testing change unfairly burdens our strongest sophomore and freshman math students. No other students are required by the testing system to take two multi-hour math exams to fulfill the state’s testing requirements in the same week.
The further these students get from their geometry and algebra courses, the more unfair these end-of-course makeup exams will be for them. By May 2011, it will have been two years since these students were formally in the algebra class and a year since they took geometry. People who teach or have taken geometry recognize the complexity of formulas and vocabulary which this course, in particular, requires.
While current freshmen in geometry will take the scheduled end-of-course exam in geometry, they too are expected to concurrently take an additional makeup exam covering algebra. This unfairly overloads these students and detracts from their focus on the regularly scheduled geometry exam.
The White River High School PTSA is concerned that the OSPI is prioritizing bureaucracy over student learning and assessment.
Neither the students, teachers, nor schools are served by overloading high-performing math students with multiple end of year assessments. These students have lived up to parent and teacher expectations by challenging themselves in their math courses.
The proposed testing scheme does not honor the students’ commitment to learning. This testing regime will also not measure successful teaching. Rather, teachers in the courses that the students are currently in will be encouraged to neglect their topics in favor of detailed reviews beginning as early as April.
This, again, shortchanges the students by reducing the potential learning in the courses in which they are currently enrolled.
The White River High School PTSA has encouraged OSPI to reconsider alternatives to the end-of-course makeup exams for the class of 2013 advanced algebra/trigonometry students and class of 2014 geometry students.
Lisa Nunn, president
WRHS Hornets PTSA
whiteriverptsa@msn.com
