8th graders lost in algebra

THE MISPLACED MATH STUDENT:
LOST IN EIGHTH-GRADE ALGEBRA
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314

Abstract:

Scores in math have been rising. They’ve been rising since the early ’90s and they’ve made tremendous gains from 2000 to 2007. But the kids enrolled in our top classes have been declining. Now, that’s not to say anything about those classes themselves. As you’ll soon see, their composition has changed. They’ve been enrolling more kids who score at low levels.

And you can see now our misplaced kids, our 10th percentile kids, they scored 211. So my kind of ballpark estimate of where they function in mathematics is approximately at the second grade level. And they are enrolled, once again, in algebra, algebra 2, or geometry in eighth grade.

Now, to get an idea of what these students can and cannot do in mathematics, here is a sample item from NAPE. This is a public release item. It deals with percentages. By the way, all eighth graders have trouble with this item. You can see that overall only 36 percent of eighth graders can do it. In case you can’t do it, I checked the right answer for you there

There were 90 employees in a company. This year, the number of employees increased by 10 percent. How many employees are in the company this year?

So you have to compute 10 percent of 90 and you get 9 and then you add that onto 90 and you get 99. If you don’t do those two steps accurately, you miss the item.

You can see that in the advanced classes only about half the kids got that item right. So this item is missed by a lot of eighth graders. But our misplaced 10th kids, the 10th percentile kids, they really had trouble with it. Less than 10 percent, 9.8 percent got this item correct.

Recommendations:

Let’s make our goal that more students will learn algebra, not that they’ll take courses

The second recommendation is to teach and assess prerequisite skills leading up to algebra. Let’s make sure, for instance, they know fractions.