Sunday, August 31, 2008

Schmitz Park and Singapore Math

Schmidtz Park Elementary School in West Seattle used 100% Singapore Math in 2007-2008. There had been some use of Singpore at the 5th grade in prior years but no use below grade 5.

I had my doubts about how well this would go above grade 2. I thought it would be too difficult to move from a non-Singapore curriculum to Singapore at grades 3 and 4.

Craig Parsley an experience teacher very familiar with Singapore taught grade 5 both sections so I figured that would go OK.

Grade 3 went extremely well according to WASL scores but not so well at grade 4. Next year should be interesting when the kids enter their second year of Singapore. Hopefully the SPS will leave Schmitz Park alone for a few more years and they can acquire some relevant data.

The SPS may use MAP testing three times per year at Schmitz park this year, which would be terrific. Spring 2009 will be the last year for our current lame version of the WASL. It will be interesting if OSPI has a real math test in 2010 to see how Schmitz park does.

The scores for grades 3, 4, and 5 follow.

GRADE 3
Year . passing % . level 4% . below lev 2

06 .... 73.5 ............ ..32.7 .........8.2%

07 .... 92.3 ............ .. 44.2 ....... 7.7%

08 .... 96.2 ............ .. 48.1 ....... 1.9%

GRADE 4
Year . passing % . level 4% . below lev 2

06 .... 73.7 ............ ..28.1 .........7.0%

07 .... 74.5 ............ .. 55.3 ....... 6.4%

08 .... 60.7 ............ .. 30.4 ....... 10.7%

GRADE 5
Year . passing % . level 4% . below lev 2

06 .... 75.5 ............ ..46.9 .........8.2%

07 .... 75.4 ............ .. 40.4 ....... 10.5%

08 .... 87.8 ............ .. 44.9 ....... 8.1%

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This is a fairly small population so year to year variations can be due to different cohorts. It will be interesting to follow cohorts using MAP testing.
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Hopefully we will soon have something other than the WASL so we will know more about actual math skills of students.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You won't really see good results until high school and it will take 7-8 years before the program shows substantial improvement. The feeder high school should be making preparations and overhauling their program.

Stick to classes that meet the A-G requirements. Screw Washington's sub-standards. The good news is any school using Saxon or Singapore can achieve miracle results compared to the nonsense being promulgated by the pony doffers at the DOE and the OSPI mismanagement think tank.