The results of last spring’s standardized tests are in, and there’s been a sizeable increase in some of the math scores at Tahoe Truckee High School. This is a change. For the last four years, Truckee High School math scores have lingered significantly below the state averages.
The tests in question were part of the state’s Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program, a battery of fill-in-the-bubble exams given to California students each spring. In Truckee, the largest increases turned up in the scores of freshmen and sophomores enrolled in geometry, freshmen enrolled in algebra I, and sophomores enrolled in algebra II. The portion of students who earned scores of proficient in each of those subjects exceeded the state averages by, at the minimum, eight percent.
Teachers at Truckee High expressed their approval. ‘We need to give the kids kudos for really taking an interest and being as serious as possible about their efforts on the test,’ said Laurie Scheibner, an algebra teacher.
Those in the Truckee math department have several explanations for the improvement.
Last year, math teachers incorporated STAR practice questions into their daily warm-ups. They also distributed packets of the questions to students not enrolled in math during the spring testing season, and offered review sessions in the weeks leading up to the STAR exams.
The practice questions gave students a chance to become familiar with the style of the questions on the tests.
Geometry teacher Dana Pomeroy was particularly impressed with the number of students who attended her review session, which she offered after school on a Monday. ‘This was an optional help session and in geometry, 40 kids showed up … and stayed for an hour and a half,’ Pomeroy said.
In part, students were motivated to attend because their futures depended on it. This year, for the first time, teachers and administrators at Truckee High took STAR scores into consideration when they placed students in math classes.
But the teachers emphasized that the improved scores couldn’t simply be attributed to the changes in the math department. ‘Classes have varying abilities and personalities, just as individual students do,’ Scheibner said, ‘Scores may go up or down over time, since each year’s scores are actually the results of a whole different batch of kids than the previous year.’
Low Scores and Tensions
Just as math teachers at Tahoe Truckee High aren’t exactly sure why the scores improved, neither do they know the reason they were low in the first place.
‘[The scores] were low because maybe the kids didn’t take the test well that year. Who knows?’ said Pomeroy.
But the issue has sparked controversy.
At the end of last school year, the chair of the Truckee High math department, Diane Laroche, resigned her position. As yet, no one has filled it.
Laroche explained that she gave up the post because district administrators have failed to respond to the math problems at the high school. Last year, district administrators met with the math departments of Truckee High and Alder Creek Middle School to discuss math performance, but Laroche said she was frustrated by the ‘lack of closure and follow-through at the district-level’ after the meetings.
She also said she resigned because she wanted to allow ‘new blood’ into the position, and because her workload as chair had been steadily increasing.
Last year’s meetings were devoted to ‘curriculum articulation.’ According to Laroche they were opportunities for teachers to sit down, discuss what’s being taught at each school, and determine how to better mesh the high school and middle school curricula. Ideally, students moving from the middle school to the high school should be ready to enter high school-level courses; but it hasn’t worked that way in the past. Currently, 11 of the 20 math courses offered at Truckee high are ‘remedial.’ They focus on middle school subject matter.
Before last year, teachers from the High School and Middle School had never formally met to discuss math curricula.
According to School Board member Bev Ducey, a special district committee is going to discuss middle school and high school math curricula throughout the district.
