Welcome

For years, the John Locke Foundation has urged the NC Department of Public Instruction to get out of the testing business. After you compare American Diploma Project (ADP) Algebra II exam results with pass rates on North Carolina’s state tests, you will understand why.

Bulletin Board

  • The E.A. Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders is now accepting applications for the 2010-2011 class. Applicants must be between the ages of 25 and 40, reside in North Carolina, and commit to a yearlong program of activities designed to examine, develop, and enhance their leadership skills. There is no cost to individuals accepted into the program. For additional information, please visit the E.A. Morris website at http://www.eamorrisfellows.org.
  • The North Carolina History Project would like educators and homeschool parents to submit lesson plans suitable for middle and high school courses in North Carolina history. Please provide links to N.C. History Project encyclopedia articles and other primary and secondary source material, if possible. Go to http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/edu_corner for further information.
  • Become a member of JLF’s Freedom Clubs! We have seven regional clubs covering every part of North Carolina, so there is one near you and your like-minded conservative friends. For more information, visit https://www.johnlocke.org/support.
  • Are you a busy school board member looking to enhance your professional development but don’t want to miss a full day of work to do so? The John W. Pope Civitas Institute will be offering school board member training on Friday, November 12 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Crabtree in Raleigh. If you register by November 5, the cost is $50 (includes lunch). If you register after November 5, the cost is $60. For additional information and to register visit www.nccivitas.org/events.


CommenTerry

In September, Achieve Inc. released results from the third annual American Diploma Project (ADP) Algebra II end-of-course exam. Nine states, including North Carolina, administered the exam to over 40,000 high school students. Nearly 2,100 high school students in North Carolina took the "no stakes" test last year.

Achieve Inc. bills the ADP Algebra II test as a "high-quality, rigorous mathematics assessment … that could serve as an indication of readiness for college mathematics." If that is true, then two facts become apparent. First, North Carolina’s state Algebra II assessment is a substandard test that is easy to pass. Second, few of our public school students are prepared for college mathematics. On the ADP test, nearly 81 percent of North Carolina students tested scored at the "Needs Preparation" level, while only 19 percent scored at the "Prepared" level or above.

How does that square with Algebra II test results from North Carolina state tests? It doesn’t — not even close. For the 2009-10 school year, approximately 85 percent of students scored at or above "Proficient" on state end-of-course Algebra II tests. As mentioned above, ADP found that around 19 percent of our students are prepared for college-level mathematics, an astounding 66-percentage point difference. Retests accounted for some of North Carolina’s inflated pass rate, but a year earlier, a similar discrepancy existed between the two assessments, even without do-over tests.

Despite students’ dismal performance on the ADP test, the NC Department of Public Instruction will be sure to spin the results. After all, North Carolina’s pass rate exceeded the nine-state consortium average! Overall, nearly 87 percent of students who took the test scored at the Needs Preparation level (versus 81 percent in NC) and just over 13 percent reached the Prepared or Well Prepared levels (versus 19 percent in NC). In other words, students in other participating states are even less prepared for college mathematics than are their peers from North Carolina. That is a scary thought.

Facts and Stats

 American Diploma Project — Algebra II Student Performance, 2010

Students tested

North Carolina — 2, 094

Consortium States — 40,111

Not prepared

North Carolina — 80.7%

Consortium States — 86.7%

  Prepared

North Carolina — 15.7%

Consortium States — 10.0%

  Well prepared

North Carolina — 3.6%

Consortium States — 3.3%

  Average Scaled Score

North Carolina — 1,058

Consortium States — 1,024

 

Mailbag

I would like to invite all readers to submit announcements, as well as their personal insights, anecdotes, concerns, and observations about the state of education in North Carolina. I will publish selected submissions in future editions of the newsletter. Anonymity will be honored. For additional information or to send a submission, email Terry at [email protected] .

 

Education Acronym of the Week

MAPP — Mathematics Assessment Pilot Program

 

Quote of the Week

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." — John Adams to