ACT

Thanks to Ken Willison, Englishville School for sharing this document!

See Jim's quote under Myth No. 5.

Myths undercut efforts to boost Michigan's high school standards

  (Click here to read)

AMBER ARELLANO

2009 AYP Summary attached

Because my home is minutes away from Spartan Stadium my loyalties lean green and white. As a Spartan fan we've learned to say "we're in a building year."

We'll as educators we've been saying our ACT scores have remained flat because the students taking the MME have not been held to the higher standards. We'll this year that all changes.

The Class of 2011 next March with take the MME. A significant number of them will have completed Algebra I, Geometry, and one semester of Algebra II. Plus they will have completed 2.5 years of English and science.

Let's hope that the ACT results reported next May say, "Michigan's average ACT show significant increase and now lead the nation." Shall we pray....

Time for a pause

I remember an article I wrote at the end of my year as president of our association. It was about those few minutes between the end of one school year and the start of the next. It’s that time when you say good-bye to the students and teachers leaving for their summer break, and that awaiting meeting to discuss next year issues. There is that minute or two, without pressure to “get it done” that you get to reflect on the past year.

Well, this is my pause.

For a number of years headlines in local papers pronounced the failings of public and charter schools. When we worked so hard to put the ACT in place as our test, our critics concluded that we'll never be able to show improvement. They also said our averages would go down.

Well, not so.

This year, with 100% of our students taking the ACT we have growth --significant growth.

My Saturday morning paper had this headline: "Schools do well in state Merit Exam."

Our members and their teaching staff are seeing the means to get our students to the next step. Good job!

While students are making some progress on the Michigan Merit Exam in math, social studies and writing, with the same or worse scores in other subject areas, still fewer than half of students are proficient in writing and math and, overall, scores don't reflect college readiness, Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan said on Tuesday.

Writing and math scores each improved by three points this year, with 44 percent of 11th grade students scoring proficient or advanced in 2009 compared to 41 percent in 2008 and 49 percent receiving those marks in math this year compared to 46 percent last year, according to test results released by the Department of Education.

MASSP members took action last week explaining to legislators why EXPLORE is important for all students entering high school. Their work was successful!

The Senate embraced member support with the following in the Senate version of HB 4447:

"MEAP and Merit Exam Changes. The Senate added language prohibiting exam funding to be spent on an expanded social studies exam, pattern scoring, or any assessments developed by the Department for the purposes of Sections 1278a and 1278b of the Revised School Code. Intent language also was added that the Department replace its current MEAP for grades 3-8 with the Iowa Test or a similar exam, and the allocation was included for the "Explore" exam in grades 8 or 9. (Sec. 104 and 104b))"

A Collaborative Story
by Summer Retreat Participants*

Thirty-two educators, representing both the middle level and high school, met during the Summer Retreat to review the report The Forgotten Middle and offer their response to the ACT research study. During the lively discussion, the participants reviewed the Executive Summary and offered their own thoughts about the report findings.

Major Finding of the Unforgotten Middle Study

The letter below was sent to the Michigan Legislature on June 17, 2009. In addition to the letter a fact sheet was enclosed (click here to download the fact sheet (DOC). The association notified association members of an ACTION ELERT on June 16th. Members were given sample letters and asked to send to their legislators.

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Dear Senator

We must do everything in our power to help Michigan students succeed in the real world.