Students taking Algebra II End-of-Course Exam this week | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Students taking Algebra II End-of-Course Exam this week | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Updated at 12:51 p.m., Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Students taking Algebra II End-of-Course Exam this week

Advertiser Staff

More than 7,000 public high school and 500 University of Hawaii at Manoa and community college students across the state are taking the American Diploma Project Algebra II End-of-Course (EOC) Exam this week.

The State Department of Education said the exam serves three main purposes:

To improve curriculum and instruction. The exam will help classroom teachers focus on the most important concepts and skills in Algebra II and identify areas where the curriculum needs to be strengthened.

To help colleges determine if students are ready to do credit-bearing work. Because the exam is aligned with the ADP mathematics benchmarks, it will measure skills students need to enter and succeed in first-year, credit-bearing mathematics courses. Postsecondary institutions will be able to use the results of the Exam to tell high school students whether they are ready for college-level work, or if they have content and skill gaps that need to be filled before they enroll in college.

To compare performance and progress among the participating states. Having agreed on the core content expectations of Algebra II, states are interested in tracking student performance over time. Achieve, Inc. will issue a report each year comparing performance and progress among the participating states.

Hawaii joined the American Diploma Project Network in 2006. The network includes 32 other states dedicated to making sure every high school graduate is prepared for college or work. In each state, governors, state superintendents of education, business executives, and college and university leaders are working to restore value to the high school diploma by raising the rigor of the high school standards, assessments, and curriculum and better aligning these expectations with the demands of postsecondary education and work.

Across the states, the Algebra II EOC will be scored using a set of common performance levels, which will be determined by the participating states in conjunction with Achieve.

Fourteen states (Hawaii, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington) are participating in the Algebra II exam pilot. Altogether, more than 111,000 students will be taking the exam this spring.

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