Local Education Tidbits

St. John’s College High School has started a private middle school for poor Latino families in Mt. Pleasant. The three teachers and thirty students are together from 8:30 to 4:30, five days a week, twelve months a year. The Board of Education has decreed that, beginning in 2007, all ninth graders must pass algebra by the end of the ninth grade. . . .

Holy Trinity teacher Charles Hennessy won the District’s Catholic Elementary School Teacher of the Year. . . .NLCB results in D.C.: 68 schools are in need of improvement, including twelve of the fifteen high schools. Students theoretically may transfer from these schools or ask for tutoring, but the D.C. school board allowed none of those three acceptable high schools (Duke Ellington, the School without Walls, and Banneker) to accept transfers, which means these students must tap into approximately $9 million set aside for after-school tutoring. How that tutoring will be administered remains to be seen. . . .

Maryland and Virginia statewide tests received a favorable review recently from the Center for Education Policy, who noted that the tests identify struggling students and make a fair attempt at remediating those students’ skills. Virginia’s class of 2004 was the first to need to pass the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests in order to aduate, leaving 100 last June who failed to graduate on time. Such a low number is generally attributed to the remedial help Virginia has provided for these struggling students. Maryland’s High School Assessments will be a hurdle for graduation for the class of 2009. . . .

In a move to limit the explosion of charter school enrollment in D.C., the Board of Education placed a moratorium on charter school applications. Strangely, there are two agencies authorized to issue charters. The D.C. Public Charter School Board would not be affected and could continue to issue charters. The Board is concerned about the quality of Charters. Five have closed recently because of financial mismanagement. . . .

Finally we find out why students entering Montgomery College take a mathematics placement test covering completely different material than what they have learned. There is a separate commission in Maryland overseeing K-12 math education than one which oversees college math education. At a recent panel discussion at the MAA meetings in Atlanta, provost Judy Ackerman admitted that students had not been allowed to use even a four-function calculator on their placement tests, nor were problem solving skills tested. In Maryland high schools, calculators are used almost all the time, and problem solving is a large part of the curriculum. . . .The local branch of the MAA, compromising the states of West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and D.C., will soon post a list of math expectations of their incoming freshmen, hopefully a beginning to better communication between colleges and high schools. . . . Click here for a rant about MCPS, and click here for random education tidbits from around the country.