MATH TESTS Fitch teacher puts out book

The book includes test problems and sample tests.
AUSTINTOWN -- Fitch math teacher Tom Reardon doesn't really like standardized tests.
But if they're a necessary evil in the state's educational system, he wants teachers to properly prepare students to pass them.
Reardon, a Fitch math teacher since 1974 and math department chairman since 1993, has written a book, published by the test preparation pros at Barron's, that he hopes does that.
"How to Prepare for the Ohio Graduation Test in Mathematics" has just been released.
New test
This marks the first year Ohio students will be required to take the OGT to graduate.
It took three years to write because the state changed what it wanted covered on the test partway through.
Reardon's book includes more than 800 test problems and three full-length sample tests along with answers and explanations for test questions.
At the end of the 1990s, the teacher, who doubles as a mathematics instructor at Youngstown State University, served on a 30-member committee charged with determining what should be on math tests for freshmen and sophomores.
"Normally, I'm not a fan of these," Reardon said. "But I wanted to be on the inside and have input on what was on the test."
Shortly after that, Barron's sent him a copy of a prep book written for the math portion of the OGT and asked him to review it.
"It was awful," he said. "It didn't address what it was supposed to address."
He sent a letter back to the publisher detailing all of the book's shortcomings.
"They wrote back and seemed to say, 'If you're so smart, why don't you write one?'" Reardon said.
He took them up on it.
"I sent them a couple of chapters and they offered me a contract to write it," the teacher said. "I thought, what better way to prepare my students and my teachers?"
Local color
The state hadn't provided any sample tests or sample problems for the teachers to use in preparing students, he said.
Besides the problems and sample tests, Reardon's book also includes references to Austintown, Fitch, fellow teachers, Superintendent Stan Watson and school principals.
"I mentioned Wedgewood Pizza and Handel's Ice Cream," said Reardon, who lives in Poland. "The students that I had in class that year are mentioned, but only by their first names."
His mathematics instruction has also taken him around the country.
Reardon travels to conferences instructing other math teachers on how to use SMART Boards in their classrooms.
A SMART Board is an interactive device that connects a touch-sensitive display screen to a computer and digital projector. The instructor can control the computer by touching the screen.
He's pictured in Texas Instrument's promotional material in front of one of his classes, using graphic calculator software on a SMART Board.
He has received numerous teaching awards, including the 2003 Toyota TIME award for which he earned $10,000 for SMART Boards and computers for the school's math department, the 2000 Radio Shack National Teacher Award and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching for Ohio in 1998.
He earned both bachelor and master's of science degrees in mathematics from YSU.