Educational Tidbits from Across the Continent

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a study this past winter regarding math achievement in 2003 by fifteen-year olds worldwide. The United States placed 28th out of 40 countries, and the U.S. placed last in score per dollar spent. Hong Kong students had the most high-achieving students, and Finland had the smallest number of low-achieving students.

Phillips Academy College Counseling Director John Anderson recently had some interesting comments in a recent Andover bulletin, including the recommendation of two books for parents and students about the college admission game: "Colleges That Change Lives" and "Harvard, Shmarvard."

Denver teachers are getting compensated for students’ higher test scores. Students are measured by standards teachers themselves wrote in line with the teachers’ objectives written back in 2000. 637 teachers eventually took part of the program, and nearly all of them collected bonuses of $1500. A teacher starting at $33,000 could eventually earn a maximum of $100,000 instead of $60,000. Other bonuses accrue for working in low-income schools, teaching math or science, or for getting advanced certification.

Princeton University has become the first elite university to combat grade inflation, when they decreed to cut the number of A+’s, A‘s and A-’s awarded for the 2004-05 school year. Almost half of the grades awarded at Princeton in recent years have been A’s. At Harvard, by comparison, most of the grades awarded are A’s.

Six characteristics of successful secondary schools, as reported by a University of New Mexico study of nine outstanding secondary schools presented at the Philadelphia NCTM conference (Emerald M.S. in El Cajon, CA; O’Bryant, a math/science magnet school in Boston; KIPP in Bronx; KIPP in Houston; Latta M.S. in SC; Rockcastle M.S. in KY; YES College Prep in Houston; Young Women’s Leadership Academy in E. Harlem; and Ysleta M.S. in El Paso, TX):

1. Teachers want kids to “dominate.”
2. There is extended after-school class time.
3. Faculty collaborate; they don’t wait for administrators.
4. Test prep is emphasized.
5. Teaching resources and materials are available.
6. Failure is not an option.

Standardized test mayhem: Indiana has just completed a two-year pilot program to test the feasibility of computers grading essays for the statewide assessment test. Michigan will soon begin a pilot program whereby sixth graders will write essays to be computer-graded. Those computer grades will be compared to human grades of some of the same essay. Neither state has decided to have computers assess essays as part of compliance with the No Left Child Behind Law. Meanwhile, in New York, exemptions from standardized testing were extended for notable schools such as the Urban Academy in Manhattan and the Lehman Alternative School in Ithaca. These schools have noteworthy alternative programs such as courses in Middle East conflicts and microbiology.

The College Board, after agreeing not to flag any student taking the SAT under unusual circumstances like extra time, is now asking some schools for more documentation regarding their students who ask for extra time. The schools that are the object of the College Board’s scrutiny have had an unusually high percentage of students who ask for extra time. . . .SAT changes: the SAT I (what we used to call the SAT) changes with the March 2005 test, with some meatier algebra, no analogies, a grammar section similar to the PSAT, and an essay. The top score possible will be 2400.

A faculty panel at the University of California, the very institution that prompted the changes in the SAT I (see our article on the subject from 2002), is criticizing the PSAT, whose test is created by the same test makers of the SAT, the Educational Testing Service. The Cal committee says that the National Merit scholarship program, for which students can qualify with a high enough PSAT score, is "contrary to U.C. standards and philosophy." Click here for details.

An alternative standardized test, encouraged by the College Board, shows promise. Robert Sternberg, a Yale psychologist, has designed a test he calls "The Rainbow Project," which evaluates creativity and problem-solving skills rather than analytical skills. The 800-student sample had a better correlation between their freshman grades and their "rainbow" test scores than their grades correlated with their SAT I scores.

There is practically no unemployment in Branson, Colorado. The entire town is involved in online learning, educating home-schooled students all across the state. Even the mayor is in charge of fifteen students. Typically, however, cyber-learning students under-perform those learning on-site at actual schools. . . .Also in Colorado, a five-year old merit pay plan authored by teachers is expected to begin in 2005-06, with teacher pay tied to their students' performance. . . .Why are more math professors male? We have been saying for years that the sex numbers would be even if as many tests, including standardized ones and contests, were over a 24-hour period as well as tightly timed over an hour or two. Harvard President Lawrence Summers has decided to not think of such nuances, however, claiming that women lack “innate ability” in math and science.

Sources: New York Times, signonsandiego.com, Washington Post, Newsweek, eschool news online, timeoutfromtesting.org