In elementary math (this years grades 4-6) there are too many students that scored below 50% on the State Math test and the MAP achievement test. A score of 50% would place that student at the average of all students in the United states that have taken the test.
Within two days of when the tests were taken last spring, we looked at the results and made some decisions on what we could do to improve the math achievement for these students.
First, at the beginning of this school year we placed the students into smaller math groups. We have ten certified teachers teaching elementary math groups. That does not include the 3 sixth grade students that take pre-algebra with the junior high students in Mr. Elsasser's class. Four of those 10 teachers have two groups and have a para assigned to their classroom during the math block. Here are the group sizes for the 14 math groups- 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 11, 11, 9, 8, 8, 6, 5, 3, 3 (the groups of 6, 5, 3, and 3 are the second groups in classrooms with paras). We hope that keeping the groups small will improve lesson progress. In our Mastery learning system, if too many students in a group are not able to achieve Mastery (90% or better on the Mastery test) then the group goes back and covers some of the lessons again. The further the students have progressed through the math programs, the better they do on the state assessment and achievement tests.
Second, we are placing students into the Middle School Math program (Saxon Math) after the students have completed fourth grade math. We have been seeing excellent student growth in Math since we started using Saxon for junior high math and Algebra 4 years ago.
Third, students spend some of their computer time in the afternoons doing Math on the computer. Mrs. Buck has each K-6 student enrolled in a computer program called IXL. IXL has questions that are tied to the Nebraska State Math Standards, which will help prepare students for the State Math Assessment given to students in grades 3-8 the last week two weeks in April. Students can access IXL from their home computer (using the login and password information that was sent home) and work on math problems on their own. IXL keeps track of student progress and issues computer ribbons when a math standard is mastered.
On a good note, this is the first year that we have had 7th grade students taking high school algebra. Six of the 21 7th graders place in Algebra and have been doing very well. And based on Fall MAP test results, I believe that all 17 high school juniors will score at Benchmark on the State Math Assessment in April.
