Posted on 01/16/2006 3:02:46 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
At least 2,500 ninth-graders in Prince George's County will abruptly move this week from a standard one-year algebra course into a two-year program, shielding the struggling students from a state graduation test this spring that officials said they were likely to fail.
The highly unusual shift comes midway through the school year in one of Washington's largest suburban school systems and in some respects runs counter to a regional trend of pushing students to take higher-level mathematics as early as possible.
....Starting Tuesday, those students will move into a retooled class called Algebraic Concepts. That will give them a one-year reprieve before facing the state test and a fresh shot at learning what they need to know about computations, graphs and word problems with variables X and Y.
The county's action shows how Maryland's decision to impose high-stakes graduation tests at the end of core academic classes is beginning to reverberate through public high schools. The requirement kicks in for the Class of 2009, this year's ninth-graders.
...."We have to be honest with ourselves about this issue," said the county's interim schools chief, Howard A. Burnett. "Ninth-graders across the country and across this county are failing and have been failing. It hasn't worked, the way we've been doing things. And so we have to start doing things differently." Burnett sent letters this month to parents of affected students.
At several Prince George's high schools, the percentage of students shifted into the two-year algebra track appears substantial. Donald Horrigan, principal of Parkdale High School in Riverdale, said 223 of the school's 481 Algebra 1 students are moving into Algebraic Concepts this week. That's 46 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
And "doing things differently" means finding creative ways around the requirements?
god forbid the school and the parents pushed the kids a little bit or like the old days no pass, no sports etc., or is this politioaly insensitive or incorrect?
Maybe if the schools weren`t teaching how to slip condoms over cucumbers or how to adjust to the homo life they might learn what is expected of them in one year course. lets make school 15 years long maybe that might help.
Another possible scenario: the sky falls.
Wow this hits close to home. Parkdale High School was our local high school where I grew up. I attended private school... which should tell you a little about what my parents thought of Parkdale. Everyone I knew has moved from that area. There was a huge demographic shift in the 80's and 90's and now there are nothing but rapes and robberies in the area. This dumbing down comes as no surprise.
"one of Washington's largest suburban school systems."
Much of PG County is about as suburban as Detroit or Baltimore. The county is also a shining example of what happens when you allow Democrats to run a county. You get the highest crime rate and the worst school system out of any of the state's counties.
Yeah, but I'd bet all those kids would pass Playstation with A+ grades.
When my son started college, I was very surprised that in order to get your AA, or your BA, for that matter, you don't have to pass College Algebra anymore.
You can take "Liberal Arts Math."
Since he took the Alg. and following math courses, I didn't investigate the Lib Arts Math curriculum, but back in the Stone Ages, when I went to school, you couldn't get a degree unless you could pass, at least, College Alg. and Stats.
Of course, if this is not a case of ALL, then it is just a way around the test. Heaven forbid we expect kids to do the work to pass a class or a test.
If teachers can't teach, students can't learn.
I've read too many articles about teachers that are afraid of math, are teaching outside of their field of study, or can't teach well. Then you have foreign math teachers that can be very difficult to understand.
And they wonder why the U.S. has fallen so far behind in math and science degrees.
Soft bigotry raises it's ugly head.
Send your parents a thank you letter.
Public schools are havens for democrat party activism.
Education (the basics) is not their main objective.
This hogwash has sprung from LIBERAL schools of education run by LIBERAL activists.
And though they can't memorize formulas, they know all the words to those goofy rap songs....
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