PWCS Passing Fewer Students on VA Math SOL
November 11, 2011 — pwceducationreformPWCS has been passing fewer students on the VA Math SOL exams than other districts is the state since Math Investigations was mandated county-wide.
We recently received a copy of a presentation provided by the PWC Math department to elementary teachers as part of an in-service. That presentation claimed that grade 3, 4, & 5 pass rates have increased since 2007 and indicated that Math Investigations, and the inquiry-based approach to instruction PWCS has adopted, was the cause of those increases. This implication is not entirely accurate. It could even be considered misleading, if we assume district employees are in the business of reporting the truth rather than affirming that the programs they support are peachy-keen.
First, Math Investigations wasn’t mandated county-wide in Grades 3 , 4, & 5 in 2007. In fact the first full MI year for Grade 3 was the Spring of 2008, for Grade 4 it was 2009, and for Grade 5 it was 2010. So claiming that increases from 2007 to 2011 are due to Math Investigations isn’t correct as MI wasn’t used in PWC classrooms until 2008, 2009, or
