Factor in a stronger state effort to improve students' algebra scores
June 2, 2008
Michigan lawmakers shouldn't be so hasty to second-guess the value of algebra as part of the state's more rigorous high school graduation standards.
The temptation is growing, because thousands of high school freshmen are failing Algebra I, a cornerstone of the new nationally hailed curriculum.
Of course, it's within reason to ask, if students are stumbling out of the gate in ninth grade, how will they possibly make it to the graduation finish line when even tougher classes await them?
The Class of 2011 will be the first to graduate under a requirement that all students complete four years of math, including Algebra I and Algebra II.
Those standards made sense when the Legislature approved them, and they do today.
Reverting to more relaxed math standards ignores the deficits that Michigan has already handed generations of graduates and dropouts.
Second-guessing algebra would be tantamount to poking a hole in what is supposed to be an academic life raft. Math is too clearly interwoven into virtually every job of the future to even be negotiable.
There are enough imaginative ways to teach it so that every mind can grasp at least the fundamentals.
The best move legislators can make on behalf of struggling students is questioning and demanding wider access to tutoring and early individualized student assessments. Struggling students need to be identified before the point of failure.
Where are the data and the plan to deal with inadequate preparation and innovation in elementary and middle schools? These schools are too key to the success of the new high school curriculum to let get a pass on future failures.
Indentifying the starting point of students' struggle with math is one way to make algebra accessible again. It's also the direction legislators should head to help Michigan make education in general relevant again.
1 comment:
I believe real relevant education begins as stated in Buddhist proverb "When the student is ready the teacher will appear". Relationships created through imaginative pedagogy will generate relevant paradigms and the invisible will become visible. Until then the children will struggle to see with awe and wonder what they are not fully aware of. It is at this intersection of teacher and student interest where motives, mindsets, and methods often collide, presenting creative challenges and in this case to ill equipt thought leaders who have yet to see their own teacher. We must look at the problem from a whole systems design perspective. There is a need to approach the desired change as a product of well connected interrelationships between the those informed teacher and the student's imagination and the only limitation to our success will be what portion of the child's imagination did we reach. The only only tempering factor for the students success will ultimately be how much passion were we able to release. The world's not just Michigan's future desperately awaits our actions.
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