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Math That Kids Need to Know; Getting the Most Out of Csap

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

As Barbie used to say, "Math is hard."

Mathematics gains on this year's statewide tests are encouraging, but the dismal fact remains that passing rates for the mathematics part of the Colorado Student Assessment Program drop precipitously in higher grades.

On the two math tests given for the first time this year, 68 percent of third-graders and 66 percent of fourth-graders passed, which is comparable to the passing rate in reading and significantly higher than the passing rate in writing.

So far, so good. But by 10th grade, the passing rate drops to only 30 percent. In an increasingly technological world, that is completely unacceptable.

Part of the explanation is that math is cumulative. A child who doesn't know how to divide whole numbers one year won't be able to learn how to divide fractions the next year.

But another part of the explanation emerged as Colorado Department of Education officials visited hundreds of schools across the state in preparation for the two new math tests.

According to Jo O'Brien, head of the department's Office of Learning and Results, more than half the teachers they met didn't know which specific math skills their students would be tested on. Specific, as in "Find the perimeter of a polygon" (geometry standard, grade 3) or "Solve simple systems of equations (algebra standard, grade 10).

Colorado has six broad, abstract math standards (e.g., geometry and algebra) each of which is broken down into slightly less general benchmarks for a range of grades, K-4, 5-8, 9-12. But the necessary specific skills, or as the jargon has it, "assessment objectives," are laid out in the CSAP Assessment Frameworks, the most concrete and detailed level of state standards (at www.cde.state.co.us/ cdeassess/csap/frameworks/ on the Web).

It's almost as if hardly anybody knows the frameworks are there (we admit we didn't). O'Brien said teachers eagerly took copies and asked for more.

Next year, she said, she and her staff will be handing out copies of the science assessment frameworks, in preparation for two new science tests, to be added in grades five and 10. That's good.

But there's no need for teachers, principals and superintendents to wait a year or two for O'Brien and her staff to come calling with printed copies of the reading and writing assessment frameworks. They can print out their own, right now, and make sure that what is happening in their classrooms is aligned with what their students will be expected to know and to do on the CSAP test.

Source: Rocky Mountain News

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