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A Good Sine ; Figures Show More Black Students on Pace to Take High Math Classes

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 18:00 CST

By PETE SHERMAN STAFF WRITER

Brock Wright and Roslynn Baker, eighth-graders at Lincoln Magnet School, 300 S. 11th St., have many reasons to enter high school confidently.

One is their performance last October on a national middle- school test that is used to place freshmen in appropriate courses.

In the math portion, Brock, 13, scored in the top 1 percentile. Roslynn, 14, placed even higher, after earning a perfect math score.

They're both considering enrolling in geometry their freshman year, placing them in the "honors" track that could lead to calculus by senior year - and a chance to earn college credit before they leave high school.

Yet it's difficult to determine whether their high scores will continue. Roslynn and Brock both are black and, as such, inheritors of a trend they and the district are trying to buck.

For at least the past five years, according to Illinois State Board of Education, not one black high school junior in Springfield has scored in the top tier in math on the state's high school assessment test, the Prairie State Achievement Examination. During that period, the proportion of white students who scored in the highest level ranged from 8 percent to almost 13 percent. Statewide and national statistics for both white and black students are only a little different.

District officials say they want to lift the scores of all students, especially minorities, and steer them into higher-level courses that prepare them for college.

Based on enrollment figures requested by The State Journal- Register, there appears to be an increase in black-student enrollment in the "gateway" algebra course, Algebra 135, that leads into more rigorous math classes that colleges look for in high school transcripts. The newspaper requested figures for black and white enrollments in all high school math classes the past two years.

The combined black and white enrollment ratio in Algebra 135 classes matches the total black-white student body ratio of the district's three high schools.

But that's a new development.

The geometry, trigonometry and calculus classes, taken by sophomores, juniors and seniors, tend to have larger white majorities.

While white students account for roughly 62 percent of the district's high school population, they account for about 83 percent of those enrolled this year in pre-calculus, a class taken by seniors and some juniors. Black students represent about 34 percent of the district's total high school headcount, but take up less than 10 percent of the pre-calculus seats.

Balancing the ratios is not solely a matter of racial equity.

"It's so important to have diversity among the top performers," said Marica Cullen, assistant principal at Lanphier High School. "That's the world we live in. You can't have a group of second- class citizens."

When every kind of student is performing at the highest level, "it's a sign that the system is working well, that all the district's students are prepared to be leaders, solve problems and help the country stay on top," said Carol Vander-Kloot, the district's math coordinator.

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High school students can't take classes such as trigonometry and pre-calculus unless they pass classes such as Algebra 135 and geometry. Freshmen who enroll in a less rigorous math course find it's nearly impossible to jump into a higher track later.

"Without an adequate foundation, it comes back to bite them," Cullen said of students trying too late to bump up a notch.

The challenge for district elementary and middle schools is to get students ready for Algebra 135 their freshman year. It's up to the high schools to find ways to continue the pace.

The district is trying a number of solutions.

Easier high school classes like bookkeeping and consumer education used to count as math credits, but district officials dropped those courses from the math departments a few years ago. Lower-level algebra courses were either modified or eliminated because data revealed students who took the courses performed poorly later on.

Assistant school superintendent Sue Dole said three national experts are providing the district with guidance to increase student expectations. At every grade level, district and school employees are trying to spot student weaknesses as early as possible.

Each of Springfield's three public high schools has its own approach. Southeast High is using a national program called AVID, which helps advance mediocre students. Southeast principal Tammie Bolden has consulted the Evanston-based Minority Student Achievement Network, an organization that specializes in moving minority students into the top percentiles. The district is considering joining the MSAN.

Springfield High assistant principal Sheri Pohlman believes juniors have little incentive to do well on the Prairie State exam, and the school is considering rewards for students who get higher scores.

Lanphier High School is undergoing a dramatic change, organizing into smaller schools that act like colleges of a university.

Lanphier freshmen enrolled a step below Algebra 135 take an informal geometry course at the same time.

"There's no way to get (those students) on the ACT/PSAE sequence by junior year unless they double up on math one year," Cullen said.

Lanphier also hired four math teachers last year, all of them black. Previously, the school had no black math teacher. One now teaches the college algebra course, and another teaches honors geometry.

Officials at all three high schools said they try to recognize potential.

"If I think there's even a hint ... that a student can succeed in a higher level, I'm going to move them there, especially if they are African-American," Pohlman said.

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Yet some of the biggest obstacles high-achieving minority students face are outside the school system.

District officials say many minority students, supported by their parents, prefer easier classes because they earn higher grades, even if a "C" in pre-calculus might mean more to colleges than an A in informal geometry.

Brock struggled so much in his honors algebra class this fall and in the seventh grade that he repeatedly asked his mother to allow him to drop to an easier level. She said "no."

Roslynn had to build a new set of friends because her old ones wanted her to "dumb down."

"Being African-American, your own people don't expect you to be smart," Roslynn said. "They tease you for being smart. It bothers me that if you want to be popular, I have to hide that side of me."

But it's not always easier when bright minority students do leave old friends behind, Cullen said.

"Minorities who choose to leave their peer group who accuse them of being 'too white' enter into a world where they're not fully accepted either, where (a white parent will say) it's OK to have (minorities) in my daughter's class, as long as they don't date her."

Source: State Journal Register

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