Which Students Get Into Eighth-Grade Algebra?

In this thoughtful article in Exceptional Children, Valerie Faulkner, Cathy Crossland, and Lee Stiff (North Carolina State University) report on their study of factors that affect the placement of students with special needs in eighth-grade algebra classes (which are widely regarded as a gateway to higher-level courses in high school and access to college). The researchers examined:

• Fifth-grade math performance;
• Fifth-grade teachers’ rating of students’ ability;
• Students’ IEP status.

What Faulkner, Crossland, and Stiff wanted to know was how these three factors influenced students’ sixth-grade class placements when they moved to middle school, and how those placements influenced whether students were assigned to algebra in eighth grade. “The essential question we raise,” they say, “is whether the fifth-grade teacher perception of student mathematical ability and the actual student mathematical performance indicators affect these placement outcomes differently for different groups of students.”

The study found that students with IEPs were less likely to be assigned to algebra in eighth grade – even when their math performance was equal to that of non-IEP students who did wind up in eighth-grade algebra. “Students with IEPs who demonstrated inconsistently high performance were the group of students hardest hit,” say the researchers. “Their odds of placement in algebra by eighth grade were one fifth those of their inconsistently high-performing peers without IEPs.”

What’s going on here? Faulkner, Crossland, and Stiff speculate that the way these students present – inappropriate behavior and use of language – causes teachers to form lower expectations. “Perhaps for students with IEPs, behaviors other than math performance play a larger role in teacher perception and eventual class placement than for their peers,” say the researchers. They are particularly concerned that special-education teachers seem to defer to the judgment of regular-education teachers when it comes to course placement, don’t advocate strongly enough for their higher-performing students, and don’t seem to understand the importance of algebra placement for students’ futures. 

The bottom line: math performance, not behavior or special-education status, should determine access to higher-level courses.

“Predicting Eighth-Grade Algebra Placement for Students with Individualized Education Programs” by Valerie Faulkner, Cathy Crossland, and Lee Stiff in Exceptional Children, Spring 2013 (Vol. 79, #3, p. 329-345), http://cec.metapress.com/content/c8j1702611086177/

From the Marshall Memo #474