Monday, Jan. 4, 2010 | 4:32 p.m.
As Clark County students prepare for next week’s semester exams, there’s online math help available at the Regional Professional Development Center.
The RPDP, created by the Legislature to help train teachers, also offers students a chance to sharpen their skills. Bill Hanlon, the RPDP’s director and a veteran educator, gives his math tips in short online video clips. Students can also pull up practice questions that come directly from last year’s common semester exams.
Prior to 2008, district math teachers were allowed to use their own versions of final exams. When the district decided to measure how well students were learning the required material, a common semester exam was necessary. The RPDP helped the district develop the exams, which were given for the first time in January 2008.
The high failure rate by district students on the new exam set off alarm bells for educators, who called a review of both the test’s content and better preparation by classroom teachers. And there was some improvement, although the overall failure rate remained distressingly high: For algebra I, 84 percent of high school students failed the semester test a year ago, down from 90 percent in January 2008. In algebra II, the failure rate was 78.4 percent in January 2009, down from 86 percent a year ago.
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