The fact that STEM disciplines, especially mathematics is of utmost importance has been exhaustively research (Musen, 2010). All findings point to the fact that students who had taken Algebra II in high school were twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree as students who had not taken this course but had also enrolled in college (Adelman 2006).Algebra I acts as a gateway to a bachelor’s degree.
The caption below the table describes the data. Note that fully 60% of Black students test proficient in English Language Arts (ELA) CST exams. This table also gives the baseline number of Black students in grades 9-11 since all students take the ELA portion of the CST.
Figure 1 above displays Black student performance on the mathematics portion of the CST for students in Grades 2 through 11. The lower third of each bar represents the percentage of students scoring either proficient of advanced. These are the two levels of performance that denote subject competency. Note the steady decline in competency beginning at grade 4.
Study these illustrations. Our next post will offer some detailed explanations and hopefully foment some soul searching and thought provoking responses.
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