Fifth grade math SOL results

[Anonymous]

Is it your understanding that 5th graders in advanced math do not take the 5th grade SOL, but instead take the 6th grade SOL?

I have heard that the reason our school's 5th grade math SOL scores are so low is b/c the top third of the class (roughly) takes advanced math so they skipped the 5th grade SOL and their scores were in the results for 6th grade SOLs. The result is that the final results for passing/failing 5th grade math SOL included only those kids who weren't in advanced math... and thus the results look bad.

What I don't understand is: if this is the case all over FCPS and the state of Va., then why are the county and state pass rates for 5th grade math higher? Do most of the schools in the county offer advanced math to 5th graders (who then take the 6th grade SOL)? Or is it somewhat unusual for non-AAP schools to have 1/3 of their students taking advanced math?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it your understanding that 5th graders in advanced math do not take the 5th grade SOL, but instead take the 6th grade SOL?

Yes

Anonymous wrote:
I have heard that the reason our school's 5th grade math SOL scores are so low is b/c the top third of the class (roughly) takes advanced math so they skipped the 5th grade SOL and their scores were in the results for 6th grade SOLs.

Sounds logical, if there were indeed that many advanced math students.

Anonymous wrote:
What I don't understand is: if this is the case all over FCPS and the state of Va., then why are the county and state pass rates for 5th grade math higher? Do most of the schools in the county offer advanced math to 5th graders (who then take the 6th grade SOL)? Or is it somewhat unusual for non-AAP schools to have 1/3 of their students taking advanced math?

Good question. I do not think FCPS schools break out the numbers for how many students took out-of-grade SOLs. I doubt that every FCPS ES has 1/3 of their 5th graders in advanced math, though.

[Anonymous]

By advanced math, do you mean AAP? My understanding is that in AAP, 4th grade takes 4th grade SOL, but 5th grade takes 6th. So only non AAP kids take 5th, in every school. But they are new math SOL standards this year, and math scores went down across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By advanced math, do you mean AAP? My understanding is that in AAP, 4th grade takes 4th grade SOL, but 5th grade takes 6th. So only non AAP kids take 5th, in every school. But they are new math SOL standards this year, and math scores went down across the board.

Advanced math is in all AAP Centers but it is also offered at all FCPS elementary schools. In other words, a student does not have to be in an AAP class to be in advanced math.

[Anonymous]

More about how advanced math works in elementary school:

http://www.fcps.edu/is/math/elementary/index.shtml

[Anonymous]

OP, the pass advanced information is now posted on the individual school profile section on the FCPS website. You could check your school and figure out how many students were in 5th grade, then subtract the number of students that took the 5th grade math SOL, and use that difference to estimate ow many 5th graders took the 6th grade math SOL as advanced math students.

[Anonymous]

PP, can you provide a link to the pass advanced info? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the pass advanced information is now posted on the individual school profile section on the FCPS website. You could check your school and figure out how many students were in 5th grade, then subtract the number of students that took the 5th grade math SOL, and use that difference to estimate ow many 5th graders took the 6th grade math SOL as advanced math students.

I understand this and in fact, the principal told me that there were 34 5th graders (put of roughly 110) in our non-AAP school who take the advanced math offered by the AART (this is a daily class). These 34 5th graders took the 6th grade SOL (just never took the 5th grade SOL). As a result, our school stats for the 5th grade SOL are quite low, at least in part b/c the high-achievers don't take it. So, only the kids taking general ed. 5th grade math take the 5th grade math SOL.

I just wondered if this was true at a lot of other schools or if this is unusual. If it is a common occurence in the county, then the county SOL average pass rate should be similar to our school's pass rate.... yet, our school's pass rate for 5th grade math (only this subject and only this grade) are substantially lower than the county pass rate.

Seems like any school that offers advanced math (and therefore has 5th graders skipping the 5th grade SOL) gets shafted in how the statistics are done b/c the higher-level kids are not getting counted in the stats for 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, can you provide a link to the pass advanced info? Thanks!

http://commweb.fcps.edu/schoolprofile/

Select the school you are interested in from the dropdown list, and then on the resulting page select the Test Results tab.