Tuesday, May 29, 2007
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN — Seven students huddle in Fitch High School teacher Tom Reardon’s class, noses in notebooks, calculators in hand, navigating through a problem.
It’s a similar scene in Diana Ghizzoni’s class at Poland Seminary High School: students engrossed in a series of complicated problems written on the board, pencils in hand and calculators nearby.
In both classes, the discussion sounds like a different language. Words like negative infinity, coefficient and odd power get bandied about.
A peek over a student’s shoulder or a glance at the blackboard reveals a collection of numbers, lines and symbols.
But neither Reardon nor Ghizzoni is a foreign language teacher, and neither class is about ancient writing. It’s high math — advanced placement calculus, to be exact.
Students in both classes are preparing for a test that would allow them to earn college credit for calculus work.
In short, these kids are smart.
Fitch was recognized earlier this month by ACT, the college admission testing organization, as one of 382 high schools across the country for teaching rigorous math content to students.
Poland Seminary High School earned the distinction in math and science.
Students at both schools who took the ACT during the 2003 to 2004 year earned better scores on those portions than most high school students nationally after taking certain courses.
Teachers at both schools believe it’s a trend that’s continued in subsequent years.
The recognition is part of ACT’s “Rigor at Risk: Reaffirming Quality in the High School Core Curriculum,” a report delivered this month to education leaders in Washington, D.C.
Too hard?
Reardon sometimes hears from students complaining that the work is too hard, or that the content is something they would never use after high school.
Sometimes parents, whose children are accustomed to getting As and Bs, complain that Reardon’s classes are too difficult when those same children struggle in his classes.
He says he’s just trying to prepare the students for college and beyond. He points to “The World is Flat,” a book by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, about how students in other countries may be better prepared for the work force than students in the U.S. Post-It notes mark several pages in Reardon’s dog-eared copy of the book.
Ghizzoni, too, said that students regard her classes as challenging.
But both teachers hear from students who graduate that they’re grateful for the courses and the hard work.
“Often it’s the students who struggle in the classes that I hear from,” Reardon said.
They tell him that the concepts they learned in his classes prepared them for what they encountered in college.
And sometimes, said Ghizzoni, they contact her to let her know that the math classes they took at Poland enabled them to test out of math classes in college.
Students agree
Current students of both teachers seem to agree.
Fitch senior Tom DeToro is already taking half of his classes at Youngstown State University where he’ll study computer science next year.
The ACT test wasn’t a problem for him.
“All of the teachers in Austintown — they don’t teach to the test — but they make sure you’re prepared for it,” Tom said.
Brittani Jones, also a Fitch senior, was accepted into The Ohio State University’s chemical engineering program through direct enrollment. Some students apply to the program after already attending the university.
Brittani credits her math classes and teachers at Fitch.
Aimee Wallace, a Poland senior, felt prepared for the ACT test when she took it earlier this year. Because of the classes she’s taken, there was nothing on the test that was new to her.
Aimee plans to major in pharmaceutical law next year at Ohio Northern University.
Tim Sutcliffe, another Poland senior, breezed through the math portion of his ACT test.
“At Poland, you get it all before you even take the test,” he said.
Tim plans to major in astronomy at Case Western Reserve University next year.
Jared Morell didn’t have any problems with the college test, either. “I definitely felt prepared,” he said.
Jared, a Poland senior who plans to study computer engineering at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, says he’s talked to Poland graduates who have indicated their high school classes prepared them for college work.
“I would say we’re prepared for college because of what we learned in high school,” Jared said.