ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
A Pulaski County School Board member called for more homework and curriculum uniformity Tuesday as ways to raise basic skills test scores in the school system.
"We need to cover the material. We need to give more homework, folks," Rhea Saltz told educators from Dublin and Pulaski middle schools and Pulaski County High School who are studying standardized achievement scores by county students.
Saltz also criticized "different vocabularies" in teaching the same subjects. For example, he said, one mathematics teacher would talk about transposing numbers while another terms the process "carrying across the bridge."
He said the attitude seems to be "As long as I get the right answer, what difference does it make what method I use?" But this creates difficulties for students when they move to another math class where the terminology and methodology change again, he said.
"We all have to get on the same boat," he said. "Our test scores will go up when our expectations go up."
Dublin Middle School Principal Paul Phillips said many things affect test scores, including what classes a student has taken, what kind of test preparation has been given, and the environment in which the test is given.
But the biggest factor seems to be the socio-economic background of the child, Phillips said. "That correlation is the highest of all," he said, "and we do not control that."
Pulaski County educators have been concerned about test scores like those for the nationally used Iowa Test of Basic Skills in grades 4, 8 and 11.
At Pulaski County High School, a composite of test scores in such areas as reading comprehension, math, writing, social studies and science averaged below the national midpoint from 1989 to 1991, and began climbing from then to 1995 when the composite scores averaged 61 (50 being the midpoint). But this year the composite dropped to 53.
"We're dealing with a generation of young people who choose not to read," said Vada Boyd, chairwoman of the school's English department. They are more oriented toward video, she said, and that hurts testing ability.
High School Principal Jim Kelly said a program aimed at raising reading skills is being prepared "and it really has nothing to do with test scores. It has to do with the kids." The need for such a program would be evident even without the testing, he said.
"We realize that high test scores raise eyebrows. Low test scores shut doors," said Pulaski Middle School teacher SuSu Sadler.
Superintendent Bill Asbury said education nationally is still recovering from the trend during the 1960s and 1970s to avoid rigor and concentrate on making students feel good about themselves. Now, he said, the pendulum is swinging more toward teacher accountability in preparing students and toward tougher academic standards.
"It's not a pendulum, Bill," Saltz said. "It's a merry-go-round. Just wait and it'll be back."
In other business Tuesday night, the School Board raised the student activities fee at Pulaski County High School from $2 to $5 for the 1996-97 school year, and the parking fees from $5 to $10.
It is the first time either fee has been increased since the school opened in 1974, Kelly said. The student activities fund was $1,700 in the red at the end of the 1995-96 year, he said, and the student parking lot is being repainted and relined.
The fee for driver education will drop from $175 to $150 next year, because that fund is in good shape.
Asbury said student activities in general are going to have to become leaner and depend more on booster and parent support because of the shortfall in financing them.
"The option then is the board's going to have to pick that up by taking it out of instruction. That's not a good option," he said.
Federal funding decreases are forcing the school system to absorb two aides and one secretary from middle school in-school suspension positions in new or vacated jobs elsewhere. That means neither Pulaski or Dublin Middle School will have an in-school suspension program unless it can be carried out with teachers during duty periods.
The board approved negotiating with a wireless technology company to survey the county to see how all its schools could have wireless computer links, using a mountain-top tower to beam the signals. Building computer lines between the schools has proved to be too costly for the system to consider.
Jim Sandidge of the system's technology staff said the new wireless technology only came on the market about nine months ago. "If it works, we have an opportunity to link all our schools."
"Next year, it will be something else," Saltz said. "Technology is going to bankrupt us. You watch what I tell you."
Saltz cast the only dissenting votes against the survey, the dropping of positions for in-school suspension programs, and the increase in the two high school fees.
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