INVESTIGATION: A Troubling Trend Among San Francisco Public School Students?

San Francisco is known for it's wide diversity in people, the number of jobs headquartered there, the high cost of rent, and the wide variety of food choices that we all love to eat, whether people are residents of the city or from anywhere in the Bay Area. A few number of San Francisco schools have been top ranked, and has been praised for their encouragement of students to study and stay in class without doing drugs or alcohol. However, the latest test for students at San Francisco public schools that I graded at San Jose State University (SJSU) has revealed some surprising trouble among students. People who have listened to the news thought that the troubling trend in hiring teachers was the only thing in their minds that many school districts have a hard time with. But i n this blog, while I cannot disclose any private and confidential information for safety and privacy reasons (name, school, age, grade level, etc.), I've uncovered my findings about the surprise sample number of students that failed to perform well on the exam.

While I'm mainly an English major, I reported to SJSU's math department in the morning to help out in grading exams, and I'm dedicated in being honest in getting accurate results with the help of my fellow exam helpers who are also SJSU students. The procedures are straightforward, and even though I may not know the problems a while back, the scoring instructions are on a sheet that I was given. Each exam consists of two problems, both eight points each divided into a number of parts ranging from one to eight. Some problems may be worth one point while others are two points, but the total number of points per problem cannot exceed eight. No partial credit is given in such official exams.

While my assignment is to grade the second problem of the exam, the first part of the problem that I briefly looked at consists of plotting points along a typical graph. That part of the problem is what I felt that students have managed to figure out, but in a survey of about 45 students, roughly half of the students managed to pass the exam. However, my grading of the second problem in the revealed a huge troubling trend among the students that took the exam. For example, there were five parts to the second problem, but the last three parts of the exam were two points each. As the exam contains confidential information about the students, I cannot go into the specifics on the problem.

The problem consist of an equation and a given graph using a hyperbola, but the students must be able to label the x and y-axis, as well as drawing a hyperbola. I was able to find a surprise amount of students not labeling the x and y-axis correctly on the exam, which are some of the mistakes that can build from one part of the problem to the next, ultimately resulting in lower scores. The number of low scores on the second problem of the exam were surprising to me. Nearly every single student that I surveyed never got a score above four points. Some students did get five points on the first problem of the exam, but not on the second problem.

I also found out that in at least one student, he wrote on the exam that he was "never taught" on the graphing of the axis and the parabolas. It came out to be a surprise for me, as I rarely have seen such excuses. However, the scoring by official people like me is fair game, as the problems in math that I briefly looked at are considered "straightforward."

The "straightforward" term to me referenced of what Gavilan College (and my former instructor) Russell Lee have referenced in many of his courses in both math and physics, and he wants everyone to see for himself why doing homework will likely result in a "straightforward" and "conceptual understanding of the course material" in math, as well as in physics. Most math teachers and professors would understand that basic math is very important for success in the future. The message is very clear to students that homework is very crucial to success in math courses.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Confidential information is not used in any of my blogs in order to protect and respect the privacy of others. Those information may contain names of people that are under 18. Actual number of students is not disclosed in this blog, as neither any SJSU instructor nor students or volunteers has access to any confidential information. In case any confidential information is mentioned on my blogs like this one, the use of photos or videos is strictly prohibited. The sample number of students are NOT actual number of students, and are NOT official numbers - those are only for estimates and may differ from the actual number.

THIS BLOG IS ONLY INTENDED FOR PRIVATE USE OF THE READERS. THE REPRODUCTION OF THIS WRITTEN BLOG FOR COMMERCIAL USE WITHOUT ADVANCED INQUIRIES IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS BLOG ARE ONLY OF THE BLOGGER AND NOT OF ANYONE ELSE.

Original Work: Kyle Chak
E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com
Twitter: @KyleSChak