PSSA Scores for the 2008-2009 school year were posted yesterday. A first look indicates that SCASD’s slide in its math rankings among the 500 other Pennsylvania school districts is continuing.
We’ll post the full analysis later, but for now let’s look at the results for 11th grade, which has always been a bright spot for SCASD:
- Rank in 2001: 27/501
- Rank in 2002: 8/501
- Rank in 2003: 11/501
- Rank in 2004: 27/501
- Rank in 2005: 22/501
- Rank in 2006: 17/501
- Rank in 2007: 22/501
- Rank in 2008: 23/501
- Rank in 2009: 81/501
Have the 2009 11th grade students been exposed to investigations math at all? I am confused as to how long investigations/connected math has been in use in the district. There is a definite slide, though, from 23rd to 81st. Yikes!
I believe the committee that originally selected Investigations was active in 2002-2003, so 2003-2004 would have been the first year that Investigations was used in K-5. The recently released scores were for 11th graders in 2008-2009, who would have been in 6th grade in 2003-2004, and so they wouldn’t have seen Investigations if these assumptions are correct. Connected Math, however, has been in use much longer than “Investigations”. I’m not sure when its use in SCASD began, but in 2000 SCASD made a video for C-NET, “Helping Your Child with Connected Math in the State College Area Middle Schools”.