Saturday, September 29, 2007

Another Chance to Graduate

In the state of California, recent laws have stated that in order for a student to graduate from high school, they have to pass a test called the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Students get 6 chances to pass the test while in high school. The first in February of 10th grade. The next two are October and March of 11th grade. Then October, February, and March of 12th grade. The last ditch test is July after 12th grade, but then you don't get to "cross the stage" with your classmates at graduation. There are two sections of the test: English and Math. Once you pass one of them, you never have to take it again. You just keep retaking the test that you failed.

I'm not sure what is on the English test, but the math test is not hard. Basically, you have to know math up until Algebra 1. A quick list would be converting and working with decimals, fractions, and percents, solving basic equations, slope/intercept/graphing, area/perimeter/volume/measurement/unit conversions, basic probability and statistics. I have tons of released questions and several books that have been created to help me help students pass this test.

This year, I am teaching two sections of "CAHSEE Math" for junior and senior students who have not passed the math test. In all I have about 20 students, although there are others out there who just didn't have time in their schedule to take my class. The pressure is on because they take the test on Wednesday. On Tuesday, most of them are taking the English test. So that leaves one more school day to help them prepare.

I'm worried for them. I would hate to see them get all of the required credits they need to graduate, yet not graduate just because they didn't pass a test. Yet, I also think that it is ridiculous that some of them have not passed the test already... it's not that hard. What's even worse is that some of them have just been sitting in my class for the past month doing little to no work or thinking about this test. How many times can a teacher say, "this is your test, your graduation!" to a student before giving up and thinking that the student really doesn't want to graduate? But, when it is so easy to drop out of school, and the student is actually in the classroom, how can you not think that they want to graduate? Some would say laziness (which we do have alot of!!) others would say test anxiety. I think both and a bit of ego. They can't get over the fact that they don't know stuff and they can't admit that they need help, so they just sit. Perhaps some of them think that they will just magically guess all of the right answers and just squeak by the minimum number of points to pass. I'm praying that they are using this weekend wisely and are gearing themselves up for the test.

A bonus for them is that if they pass the test, they could transfer out of my class and into something else that they need to graduate. Unfortunately, the test results will not come until late December or early January. So the class changes will have to take place at the start of the spring semester.

The test is on Wednesday and that means we still have 12 weeks left of the semester. What will we do? That's a really good question. I want to focus on real world situations where a person needs math skills. I have some ideas, but I need more. So I'm asking you, those few of you who read this blog, where do you actually use math in real life? What is this math thing good for, anyways?

4 comments:

Laurie said...

Budgeting! We use math every month to figure out what we can afford to do, or to figure out how much we have to save in order to afford something we want. We also use math to balance the checkbooks and make pretty, symmetrical scrapbooks/invitations/cards, etc.

Good luck to your kids!

Grant Kinney said...

Here's a simple example from today. To renew our car insurance, it will cost $608 for 6 months. I called another company, who quoted $1468 for a year. Which one is the better deal? Simple, but real! (P.S. Go ahead and pay the 21st century bill ; )

LaurieK said...

Real world math
~Calculating savings with using coupons and sale flyers
~Which credit card is the best deal for me? gas card, rewards card, points card, cash back card?
~How much paint do I need to paint my garage?
~How many calories must I forgo to lose 10 lbs?
~How do I double a recipe?
~Which size is a better value when I grocery shop?
~What is the mileage I am getting city vs. highway anyway?
~How many steps does it take to equal a mile?
~How much can I save on my electric bill by converting to CF bulbs?
~What percent chance of snow do we have on our vacation next week?
~How many cases of wine can I fit in the back of our car along with our cooler and suitcases?
~Which is better - a 20% off coupon or free shipping on my Internet order?
HTH!

PastSelf said...

Ditto to all of those things. On the other hand, are many of your students athletes, or fans of professional or collegiate sports? It could be fun for them to learn how statistics are calculated for individuals and teams (free throw percentage, a team's +/- when a given player's on the floor, etc.). There are TONS of examples from baseball (one of the reasons I love it...I'm a stat junkie :-) ), although football, track, soccer, and/or basketball might be more up your kids' alley, what with baseball's declining domestic popularity. You could get the students thinking critically about whether a given player's combination of stats makes him a better/worse value for his team than some other player's stats, which could lead into a discussion of whether stats really tell the whole story, etc. -- the Oakland A's GM is a dude named Billy Beane, and he was heavily involved in the writing of a book named "Moneyball" and a complete paradigm shift in how players are evaluated. Might be a nice local connection. You could also play with things like how many tickets your average sporting team would have to sell in order to pay for all their athletes' salaries (although that might be culturally insensitive, in the whole "Look what THEY'VE got that you DON'T" angle...).

You could delve into some VERY basic econ. and present the idea of opportunity cost, and then use that to quantify the [perceived] value of NOT doing X (which you should do) so you can do Y (which you want to do)...although that would need to be dealt with gently to avoid being turned into a metaphorical bludgeon...