by Ann Marie Banfield
The state Superintendent of the Georgia schools contacted parents to give them the news that the math scores from the state proficiency exam proved to be dismal. The Superintendent decided to release the news to help prepare parents for this grim news.
What I find interesting is that Georgia has pretty good math standards. According to the prestigious Fordham Foundation, GA received a "B" after the experts analyzed GA math standards. Compare this to the "F" assigned to the NH math standards.
Now what if the NH students were required to meet higher math standards as GA, or Massachusetts which was given an "A"? How well would our students perform?
The GA news is reporting that 40% of the eighth graders would have to be held back based on their failing grades. Would our students be able to pass the same test? This is a dilemma for parents in NH. NH has set the bar so low, that parents cannot rely on state exams to give them a clear idea of whether or not their child is proficient in mathematics.
With the bar set so low in NH, and with students in NH are having difficulty passing the state exam, just think if that bar was raised to the level of other states who’ve decided that math proficiency is important. Why is it, parents must rely upon outside tutoring services, private schools or choose to home-school in order to get a decent education in this state?
While reading comments at the Union Leader web site where the headline reads: NECAP Math Scores Fall Short, I found the following comment revealing:
"I am a Junior and I took the NECAP this year. I was home schooled until high school, so I come from a different background than other students. I was the only student at my school to get all 4s on the test. It really was not a hard test, it just tested basic concepts which should be learned at a young age, and apparently were not taught in public schools. I think this test shows the holes in early education, because it is not just testing information we should have recently acquired like most high school tests do."
This comment was posted by a home-schooled student who avoided the pitfalls of the NH public school system.
With all the resources and the well educated parents living in this state, it still surprises me that there is no organized effort to raise the bar.
Ann Marie lives in Bedford and is a well-informed parent concerned about the kind of math being taught in many of today’s schools– what she calls "fuzzy math"… She recently appeared on MTNP radio to discuss the subject. Click here to listen.