Our state will be using the PARCC test, and PARCC is defining different "Performance Level Descriptors" (PLDs) that will define different levels of academic achievement. This is nothing new. Our current state test does that (e.g. below proficient, proficient, etc.), but they are vague levels at best. Are the PARCC levels any better? Do they define a level needed to prepare for a STEM career? Note that in the following document describing all of the levels, the term STEM is not found.
PARCC College and Career Readiness
PARCC PLDs define the following five levels (Distinguished, strong, moderate, partial, and minimal):
Level 5 - "Students performing at this level demonstrate a distinguished command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level. ... They are academically well prepared to engage successfully in entry-level, credit-bearing courses in College Algebra, Introductory College Statistics, and technical courses requiring an equivalent level of mathematics."
Level 4 - "Students performing at this level demonstrate a strong command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level."
Level 3 - "Students performing at this level demonstrate a moderate command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level."
Level 2 - "Students performing at this level demonstrate a partial command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level."
Level 1 - "Students performing at this level demonstrate a minimal command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level."
Level 5 is NOT a STEM-ready level.
PARCC defines level 4 as the cutoff for minimal college readiness. For math, this means:
"Students who earn a PARCC College- and Career-Ready Determination by performing at level 4 in mathematics and enroll in College Algebra, Introductory College Statistics, and technical courses requiring an equivalent level of mathematics have approximately a 0.75 probability of earning college credit by attaining at least a grade of C or its equivalent in those courses."
Since these PLDs will be used to set grade level standards and drive curricula back to the earliest grades, it's clear that parents who want their kids to be prepared for a STEM college career will have to (continue to) get help at home or with tutors. If they don't figure it out in the early grades because their child is "distinguished, it will be too late by seventh grade.
The probability of success in a STEM major for someone who needs to start with "College Algebra" is already very low, never mind having one chance in four of getting a D of F.
ReplyDeleteDo you have some data on this? It seems to me that transfers doing a 2-3 do very well, especially if they co-op. Everyone else seems to run out of funding.
ReplyDeleteI will note it takes a lot of persistance for a visual/spatial student to complete ny's high school math. Most of the teaching seems to verbal-sequential (judging from Regent's Review Live and other people's experiences), so it is a breath of fresh air to get to an engineering college where the teachers can teach using visuals and symbolic notation as well as verbal sequential steps.
Is this supposed to be a joke? What am I missing? Isn't "college algebra" really "high school algebra", which is a remedial course in college? IOW, a student performing at the PARCC "distinguished" college readiness level may need remedial classes in college.
ReplyDeleteSigh. Thought it was a serious conversation.
ReplyDeleteNo, college algebra is not a remedial high school algebra course here in NY.It is the course after Regent's Algebra 2/Trig. Successful completion sends a student on to Calculus. In a winner takes all school district, it is quite common for those boys who have great mechanical and 3d skills, but poor handwriting, to go to community college to get the pre-college courses their high school would not allow them to take. They then transfer to a 4 year, earning the engineering degree in five. Small number, but I've seen it so many times that I mention it.
When did "College Algebra" become defined as the course after Algebra 2/Trig? Is that in the NY state standards?
ReplyDeleteAll of the "College Algebra" textbooks I've seen were high school Algebra 1.
Speaking of College Algebra, C is taking "Math Patterns in Nature."
They're learning unit multipliers.
I first taught him unit multipliers back in 6th grade.
The serious answer: When public school district budgets tightened to the point that the district shoved off the cost of every post-I.A2 course to the parents via dual enrollment or cancelled the course altogether. The standard pathway here for the top 2-15% is:
ReplyDelete8th I A1
9th I Geo
10th I A2/Trig
11th a semester of College Algebra, then a semester of Trig; from the CC via dual enrollment
12th College Calc 1 and 2 from the CC via dual enrollment
The assigned coursebook my child is using for College Algebra is similar to Larson's PreCalc book, just not as deep with symbolic expectations. The other odd fact is that the Regent's have decided that 10th graders may not have college credit under dual enrollment at our regional CC.
Looking at STEM colleges, many are not going to accept the transfer of the Calc credits, without the child doing some private tutoring and coming up to at least AP level and testing out at the campus.
Looking at job transfers, we found only a handful of districts in NY offering post Calc 2 in the high school, or AP Stats or AP Comp Sci. My district doesn't even offer Honors English or Honors Social Studies in 12th -- the child is to take a dual enrollment or an AP course if he does not grad in three.
As the Obama administration says, your zip code matters. The money is going to poverty districts. The rest have to make do -- and that means grad in three, or take senior year courses on your own dime at nearby colleges if your student wants more than gen ed or the handful of AP left.
Make that Regents'.
ReplyDeletesmall screens make proofreading difficult.