Monday, August 30, 2010
Education Fun with arithmetic
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 3:11 PM
UALR and Gov. Mike Beebe today are touting the "astounding" improvement of Advanced Placement test scores by students in a UALR-based effort to improve scores in math, science and English.
The release is on the jump. It lacks a critical detail — the pass rate at these schools before and after the astounding improvements.
For example, a 100 percent increase was recorded by black and Hispanic females in math and science scores on AP tests of 3 or higher. Sounds good. But what if only one student in the schools had scored at that level previously, but now two have? That's a 100 percent increase, but nothing to brag about if there were, say, 100 students in that category. I've asked for more information.
UPDATE: Program director Tommie Sue Anthony provided a few details as she drove back from a Fort Smith news conference and the numbers she provided back up the upbeat assessment.
Here's another way to look at it:
Between 2006 and 2010, the number of Arkansas students scoring at 3 or higher on the AP tests rose from 61 per 1,000 tests to 86 per 1,000. Nationally, the number rose from 92 to 115. But in the schools in the UALR program, the first 10 schools went from a pass rate of 113 per thousand in 2008 to 115 in 2009 and 191 in 2010. The second group of 14 schools went from 88 per 1,000 in 2009 to 140 per thousand in 2010. "Our schools are outstripping the state and nation," Anthony said.
"What excites me," she said, "is that our schools are truly representative of Arkansas." That is they include rural schools with limited courses and larger schools. "We don't have the raw scores some schools do to start with, but we're seeing immense improvement in all. That is the exciting thing." One specific example: A year ago, Hamburg High had 10 scores of 3 or better on the three types of AP tets. That number jumped to 40 this year, among about 300 exams.
UALR NEWS RELEASE
FORT SMITH, Ark. (Aug. 30, 2010) - Arkansas students in 24 schools participating in a UALR-based effort to improve math, science, and English excellence generated a 41.9 percent increase in Advance Placement math, science, and English scores of 3, 4,or 5, Gov. Mike Beebe announced Monday.
“This is the kind of student achievement that will take Arkansas’s education system to the next level,” Beebe said. “The best way to increase our college-graduation rate is to have our students on stronger footing when they arrive on campus. These scores are a very encouraging sign of progress toward that goal.”
The governor unveiled the astounding results of the at a news conference at Fort Smith Northside. He was joined by officials of the National Math and Science Initiative and representatives of ExxonMobil Foundation in releasing the two-year results of the NMSI program.
In September 2007, Arkansas was one of six states selected by NIMSI program funded by ExxonMobil to participate in the initiative that was based on a grant proposal written by UALR Professor Ann Robinson in the College of Education and director of the Center for Gifted and Talented Education.
Arkansas Advanced Initiative in Math and Science Inc., a non-profit organization spearheaded by UALR gifted and talented administrator Tommie Sue Anthony as president, was created to implement the NMSI grant. Anthony and the AAIMS board of directors set out to put in place a five-year plan to increase both enrollment in AP math, science, and English courses and to increase the number of scores on AP exams to 3 to 5. Ten schools joined the program in 2009 and another 14 joined in 2010. A third group of seven schools was added last spring for a total of 31.
Results announced today showed that the 10 original schools posted a 68.9 percent overall increase in science, math, and English AP exams — almost five times the national two-year increase of 13.6 percent. The second group of schools posted a 73.6 overall increase — almost 10 times the national one-year average increase of 7.5 percent
The results were even more dramatic for African American and Hispanic students. All 24 AAIMS schools posted a 91.5 percent increase in AP test scores of 3, 4, or 5 for black and Hispanic students. Girls in the first group of schools recorded a 102.4 percent increase in passing AP math and science tests — 11 times the national two-year increase of 9.2.
The first 10 Arkansas schools participating in the program since 2008 to 2010 posted a 68.9 percent overall increase in science, math, and English AP exams — almost five times the national two-year increase of 13.6 percent. Fourteen schools that joined the program in 2009 posted a 73.6 overall increase — almost 10 times the national one-year average increase of 7.5 percent
“The AAIMS schools are representative of all Arkansas schools. Our schools look like our state,” Anthony said. “This dramatic growth in AP qualifying scores proves that Arkansas students can do well in Advanced Placement.”
The AAIMS program offered formal training to upgrade content knowledge of math, science, and English teachers, established “lead teachers” to coach other AP and Pre-AP teachers, financial incentives for teachers and students based on results, opens enrollment offering opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. The program required high standards with accountability for results.
During the two years of the project, AAIMS worked with 167 AP math, science, and English teachers. At the 24 AAIMS schools, students took 5,839 AP math, science, and English exams. Scores of 3, 4, or 5 made students qualified for college credit.
Other results from the AAIMS second-year tests:
* Minority students in the first group of AAIMS schools posted a 202.4 percent increase in passing math, science, and English scores — seven times the national average increase. Minority students in the program for just one year posted a 137 percent increase in passing math, science, and English.
* School in the AAIMS programs for two years reported a 102.4 percent increase in the number of girls passing math and science scores — just over 11 times the national increase, proving the value of the program in closing the female achievement gap in math and science. From 2009 to 2010, there was a 105.2 percent increase in math and science AP exams passed by female students in the 14 schools in the program for one year.
Arkansas high schools participating in the AAIMS program are Ashdown, Crossett, Dumas, Fort Smith Northside, Hamburg, Green Forest, Magnolia, Pea Ridge, Rivercrest, Rogers Heritage, Rogers, Russellville, Waldron, Booneville, El Dorado, Greenbrier, Green County Tech, Lake Hamilton, Wilbur Mills University Studies, Newport, Little Rock Parkview, Springdale, and Springdale Har-Ber.
Speaking of Advanced Placement Test Scores, UALR
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Comments (5)
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Tests, tests, tests. The panacea. Somebody's getting rich. It's one of those notorious cycles the so called professional "educators" in charge of "education" come up with with swings one way and then the other and eventually, a move to the center. It's historical and a never ending cycle.
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Max:
Here is a link to the College Board's AP national summary report for 2009:
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads…
Nationally, 2,860,912 AP exams were taken. Of those tests, 1,672,594 received "passing" scores of 3, 4, or 5, i.e., a pass rate of 58.5% or 585 per 1000 tests. In Arkansas, 31,232 AP exams were taken, and 9,281 of them received scores of 3 or higher, i.e., a pass rate of 29.7% or 297 per 1000 tests. Thus, the Arkansas pass rate was half the national pass rate in 2009.
The data that UALR gave you must be the number of passing scores per 1000 students enrolled in the school (including students who did not even take any AP exams), which I think is a fairly meaningless statistic.
The important question is, "How many AP tests were passed out of all of the AP tests taken?," not, "How many AP tests were passed out of all of the students in a school?"
Here's the national score breakdown:
5 428,641 14.98%
4 565,900 19.78%
3 678,053 23.70%
2 602,702 21.07%
1 585,616 20.47%
T 2,860,912 100.00%
Here's a link for the Arkansas AP summary report for 2009:
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads…
Here's a link for all the summary reports:
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testin…
mag was there today and I hoped she'd come and explain to the blog what she explained to me after she got home, this stuff is kinda complicated. The thing that stuck in my mind was this part of what she said.
After all the hoorays and back patting and yippies, Governor Beebe explained to the kids that he was born and raised in Amagon with only his mom who worked as a waitress all her life.
Then the fancy Exxon guy stood up and said he was one of 11 children and grew up without a pot to piss in (OK I'm paraphrasing here).
Then the big education official stood up and said his mom was schizophrenic and his dad was an alcoholic.....all 3 of these high and powerful men came from nothing and told the kids, each in their own way, that education is the only thing that pulled them out of the garbage heap of life. Beebe said after all that....see....you kids have no excuse for not getting an education and making something of yourself. If I can get an education and go on to be the Governor of this state...you can too.
Now there's some damn proof in the pudding! Add to all that Bill Halter's Lottery Scholarship and by golly....never before has any kid from Arkansas had a better chance of climbing up out of whatever sad circumstance they were born in and having a shot at the top rung.
Wish I'd been there today! We got a long road ahead of us, but with all this going on and some more big thinking in the future, Arkansas won't have to suck hind tit forever. Just imagine a better day coming......yippy!
The bottom line is this program works. Thanks Max for digging deeper and thanks, Death, for providing the color at the Governor and Exxon Dude's testimonials. That mess of a D-G was unrecognizable and incomprehensible.
Article from the Fort Smith rag, gives a little more info:
http://www.swtimes.com/news/article_6812a6…
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