Improving the Infrastructure for K-12 Mathematics
What follows are sample findings to date. The session will highlight areas of promise as well as persistent challenges across a wide array of indicators. Data such as these have been considered by the project's steering committee on a regular basis throughout the project.
1. A disproportionately high number of students dropping out of high school in Rapid City over the past five years have been Native American. Little improvement is evident.
2. A disproportionately high number of students taking non-college preparatory mathematics courses in Rapid City over the past five years have been Native American. The overall number of credits earned in college preparatory mathematics courses has increased over the past five years, and the proportion of Native American students earning credit in college preparatory mathematics courses has increased.
3. At elementary grades, student attitudes about mathematics have shown improvement over time, are quite positive now, and differ little by race. Secondary students' attitudes are generally less positive, but have also shown improvement. Differences associated with race are more pronounced at secondary.
4. Student achievement as measured by the state test has closely mirrored statewide performance over the past five years. The percentage of students demonstrating proficiency on the more performance-oriented assessment has tended to be considerably lower than the percentage demonstrating proficiency on the state test at all grade levels. The gap is more pronounced at the secondary level, but growth in proficiency on the performance assessment has been greatest at the secondary level. Performance by students at grade 8 has increased over the past three years with an effect size of 0.3.
5. A group of 46 Rapid City teachers volunteered to take a test of their content and pedagogical content knowledge two years into the project and then again two years later, using parallel forms of "Learning Mathematics for Teaching" measures (LMT). The average number of hours of professional development completed by each of these teachers over the two years was 80. This group showed significant growth on the LMT over the two years with an effect size of 1.0.
6. Undergraduates volunteered to take the same LMT measures at the beginning and end of their teacher preparation coursework in mathematics at BHSU. Scores of the undergraduates are markedly lower than those of the in-service teachers who volunteered for testing in Rapid City. Additionally, there is little evidence of growth on these measures as the pre-service students progress through their coursework.
