REPORTING COLLEGE PLACEMENT SCORES AND GRADES TO HIGH SCHOOLSAuthor(s): RICHARD B. THOMPSONSource: The Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 74, No. 4 (April 1981), pp. 269-272Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27962430 .

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REPORTING COLLEGE PLACEMENT SCORES AND GRADES TO HIGH SCHOOLS

By RICHARD B. THOMPSON University of Arizona

Tucson, AZ 85721

As teachers of mathematics, we all like to

know how well our students perform after

they leave our classrooms. Such informa

tion allows us to evaluate the effectiveness

of our programs and to provide the most

relevant instruction that is possible for our

current students. Unfortunately, the only

follow-up information that we often get about our students consists of vague com

plaints from the public or from teachers at

the next level of instruction. In many cases, it is impossible to tell whether or not these

reports are founded in fact, whether or not

they apply to our own students.

My purpose in writing this article is to

describe a reporting procedure that is used

by the mathematics department at the Uni

versity of Arizona to give in-state high schools information about the performance of their graduates. This report is designed to provide schools with specific information in a fashion that helps each school to eval uate its own mathematics program.

Background

In 1976, we became concerned about the

low placement-test scores and the high at

trition rates in our algebra service courses

at the University of Arizona. It appeared that there were four principal reasons for

this poor student performance.

Strengthened mathematics require ments in many university departments and

colleges were forcing more students to take our courses. Many of these new students

had a record of low achievement in mathe

matics along with a dislike for, and fear of, the subject.

Many students had not taken enough mathematics courses in high school.

Many students had not taken any mathematics courses or used any mathe matics during the last part of their second

ary school program. These students may have had an adequate knowledge at the time that they were studying the subject, but they had simply forgotten the material

before they arrived at the university. Some students had appropriate high

school records, but had apparently never

really learned the material that had been included in their secondary school mathe

matics courses.

Since it was obvious that the high schools would be our main allies in helping students to solve these problems, I wrote to

the principals of all the Arizona secondary schools. My letter described the situation,

gave information on mean test scores, and

contained an offer to work with them in

whatever way we could to help improve the situation.

I was pleased to receive many responses, but was disappointed to find that most of the principals felt they could not do much to help on the basis of the information that I had supplied. The first problem was that the general statistical averages did not

show whether or not the students from a

particular school were among those who were having trouble. Second, if their stu

dents were having difficulties, principals could not take very effective action unless

they knew which of the four types of prob lems applied to their former pupils. Many of the principals expressed a sincere inter est in the situation but said that they could not be of much help unless they had spe cific information listing the performance of

April 1981 269

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their students by name. Given this infor mation and the high schools' records, they could attempt to isolate areas where their

graduates were having difficulty or success.

Between 1976 and 1978, we developed a

computerized record-keeping system that allowed us to generate information about the individual performance of students in

any specified group. In addition, our regis trar's office had computer records that could be used to list all the students en

rolled in our basic algebra courses who had

graduated from a specific Arizona high school. The combination of these systems gave us the capability of providing the type of follow-up information that the high schools had requested.

Our last step was to explore the legal

question concerning the distribution of per

sonally identifiable information from stu dents' university records. This dilemma

Confidentiality of grades was a concern.

was resolved when we were advised by le

gal counsel that such a distribution would not violate the provisions of the Family Ed ucational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974

(Buckley Amendment). The permissibility of our report was based on the inclusion of a carefully written paragraph stating the terms under which information was being released and setting forth limitations on the use of that information.

With the way cleared to generate and distribute our reports, we were faced with the question of financial support and cleri

cal assistance for the high school mailing. These issues were resolved with funds from the Vice President for Student Relations and the help of the secretaries in the office of the Dean of Students.

The Report

At the start of 1978, we sent our first re

port to each Arizona high school. This in cluded the following:

1. A cover letter, with legal restrictions; 2. Record sheets for three separate univer

sity courses for fall 1976 and spring 1977, listing only the students from that school and giving a report on their

work; 3. An interpretive guide explaining the for

mat of the record sheets; 4. A description (including sample ques

tions) of the algebra placement test used at the University of Arizona.

A typical record sheet showing the record of students from a fictitious school who were placed in intermediate algebra (math 11) is given in table 1.

Each of our algebra courses is divided into three one-credit parts called A, B, and C. For example, the first third of math 11 is

IIA, the middle third is IIB, and the last third is 11C. The "Part(s)" column of the

report shows "all" if a student was regis tered in the entire course, for example,

math 11 at the end of the semester. If a stu dent dropped back to either one or two

parts during the semester, then the letter(s) of the part(s) for which he or she was en

rolled at the end of the semester are shown. If a student remained in the entire

table l University of Arizona Department of Mathematics

Spring 1977

Placement Test Scores Final Mathematics Placement

Name Part 1 Part 2 Course Part(s) Grade(s)

Jones, Bill 6 2 all ? Velez, Thomas 10 5 11 all Smith, Deborah 6 8 11 AB CA Grove, Linda 7 0 11 A W

270 Mathematics Teacher

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course, then the final grade is shown in the

"Grade(s)" column. If a student changed enrollment into parts of the course, the fi nal grade for each part is shown. For ex

ample, Deborah Smith enrolled in all of math 11, but then dropped the last third of the course and completed only parts A and

with grades of C and A, respectively (see table 1).

The description of the placement test and sample questions that were provided with the report gave enough information for each high school to interpret the raw scores for both parts of every student's test.

However, we did not circulate copies of the

placement test itself or even of an equiva lent, nonofficial form of the test. This was done to avoid any possible tendency for teachers to use this sample placement test as a goal for their students' work.

The principal and chairman of the mathematics department receive reports.

Two copies were mailed separately to each of the approximately one hundred

twenty-five high schools in Arizona, one

copy to the principal, and one copy to the head of the mathematics department.

The Results

The distribution of our report brought forth a strong and very positive response from many of the state's high schools. Both teachers and principals indicated that they found the information to be helpful and that they were planning some changes in their programs that were in part motivated

by the data that we had supplied. Most of these changes involved encouraging stu dents to study more mathematics in high school. Particular emphasis was placed on

using the senior year to sharpen students' mathematical skills prior to enrolling at a

college or university. There are several factors that make the

data useful to schools. First, each school re

ceived information only about its students and received few data on the average per formance of all students. Thus each school could evaluate the achievement of its own students in relation to its own expectations and no school felt threatened by how its students compared to university norms.

Second, the receipt of the report by both the principal and the head of the mathe

matics department helped to get both the administration and the teachers involved in

using the information. This procedure also made it less likely that the information would simply be ignored. Finally, it was clear that the university instructors were not criticizing the high school training of any particular student. Knowing only the

university record of a student, we could not

possibly know whether or not this was commensurate with that student's high school mathematics curriculum or grades. Only the secondary school personnel could make such a judgment after they had taken our data for a given student and compared that with their records of his or her work at their school. The university did nothing

more than supply the information that was

necessary for the high school to evaluate its own program. We had no way of knowing the results of this evaluation.

The results of the evaluations were en

couraging in some cases and disturbing in other cases. We were told by high schools that many students had fared better at the

university than their teachers had expected. The poor university performances of other students were unfortunately quite predict able, based on their poor grades or their avoidance of high school mathematics courses. Such cases are obviously no reflec tion on the quality of the high school's pro gram.

Our high school report and the dis cussion about it served as one of the cata

lysts for a very useful dialogue among mathematics instructors. A consortium of

representatives from all the community colleges and universities in Arizona invited

high school mathematics coordinators and

department heads to a meeting to discuss

placement testing, new college mathe

Apriimi 271

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matics requirements for various non mathematical majors, and other topics of common interest. As an outgrowth of this

meeting, Matthew Hassett of Arizona State

University prepared an information book let covering these areas for distribution to all state high schools. The formal dis cussions and informal contacts at our meet

ing proved so beneficial to both high school and postsecondary teachers that the con sortium has held further sessions of a simi lar nature.

Conclusions

Our experiences in Arizona indicate that universities and colleges can assist second

ary schools in developing their mathe matics programs by providing detailed re

ports on the performance of the graduates from each high school. If these reports are issued in a spirit of cooperation and in a

nonthreatening manner, they can serve as a basis for mutually beneficial cooperation among mathematics teachers at various levels of instruction.

Colleges and universities should give se rious consideration to providing such re

ports to high schools in their region, and

high schools might wish to request such in formation about their graduates. Although we have not yet done so in Arizona, a simi lar type of report from universities and

four-year colleges to community colleges could also prove to be quite valuable.

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272 Mathematics Teacher

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