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Math plan aims to boost scores

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The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has embarked on a three-year

plan to improve math scores, citing new federal standards that demand

higher student performance.

Under the plan, which English-learner programs director Karen

Kendall introduced at the Sept. 13 board meeting, Newport-Mesa will

seek to enhance and coordinate its math programs. Items on the

district’s action plan include aligning grades with standardized test

scores, encouraging project-based instruction and developing common

definitions of what constitutes a grade.

The math focus is the first part of a larger effort to assist

Newport-Mesa students who routinely bring home D and F grades. While

aimed at all secondary-school students, the measure particularly

targets English learners.

“This is not something that will happen overnight,” Kendall said.

“We see this as a multiyear initiative.”

With the federal government raising the bar on standardized test

scores, such intervention may prove necessary. Last year, the No

Child Left Behind Act required that 23.7% of students score as

proficient or above on math -- nearly double the percentage from the

year before. As a result, the government downgraded many Newport-Mesa

schools -- even schools that posted large increases on state test

scores -- for not having met the federal standard.

Newport-Mesa has eight schools on the program improvement list,

which identifies economically disadvantaged schools that fail to meet

federal requirements for two years in a row.

“We just want to help kids jump higher to meet that high bar

that’s been put out there,” Kendall said.

In May, the state Department of Education visited Newport-Mesa’s

secondary campuses to monitor programs for English-learner students.

The district has worked closely with the state over the last several

years as it has enhanced its language arts programs. After the May

visit, the state asked the district and schools to submit plans to

bolster their math programs as well.

Kendall responded by outlining a series of goals for the district,

including an expansion of the Read 180 program and a data group to

ensure that students are placed in the correct classes. Each school

must submit a preliminary action plan to the state by Oct. 15.

Some sites, inspired by the state’s visit, have already added new

services for their English-learner students, both in math and other

subjects. Costa Mesa High School added an English-language

development class for this fall, while Ensign Intermediate School

initiated new social science classes for incoming seventh-graders.

Newport Harbor High School began an English-learner task force for

all grade levels and created a small learning community for

ninth-graders. The school usually operates on a block schedule, in

which students alternate classes each day, but the new program allows

ninth-graders to study algebra on a daily basis.

To augment the small learning community, the school’s foundation

paid for the hiring of new bilingual aides. Neil Malkus, Newport

Harbor’s English-learner coordinator, said many students at the

school badly needed the extra measures.

“How effective it is, we really won’t be able to know until the

quarter,” Malkus said. “But I can say now that a lot of our

ninth-graders and English-learners are not prepared to succeed in an

algebra class.”

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