By KAREN W. ARENSON
New York Times
July 2, 2003

Everyone knows now that the June 17 Math A Regents exam was problematic, with almost two out of three test-takers failing.

The question is why.

Richard P. Mills, the state education commissioner, nullified the test results last week for juniors and seniors, and he and the Regents will soon appoint a panel of experts to figure out what went wrong. In the meantime, parents, teachers and others have their own theories.

Some of their explanations have to do with the mechanics of the test: poorly worded questions, lengthy questions that required students to be good readers, multiple-choice questions that had more than one valid answer. Some educators say they were the sort of problems that could have been caught by closer scrutiny of the test before it went out.

"If someone had paid me $100 to proof this test, I could have picked out the problems that would create problems," said Daniel Jaye, chairman of the math department at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.

But some explanations touch on deeper issues, including whether the Math A curriculum is too broad, how much harder it is for students to solve problems than to manipulate equations, and whether unqualified teachers are even less likely to succeed in preparing students than they were with the old math curriculum.

When the Math A exam was introduced in 1999, the State Education Department proudly declared that it was harder than Math 1, the old first-level test. There would be more word problems, and students would need a deeper understanding of math and math concepts to do well. Instead of covering a year's worth of material, as most Regents exams do, Math A was meant to be learned over three semesters. Although some students complete the work in a year, some schools have added extra instruction periods and tutoring sessions, and have stretched the course out over four semesters.

For a while, the state offered both the old Math 1 exam and the new Math A test. Some schools moved their students quickly to Math A, while others dragged out the transition. The Math 1 test was given for the last time in January 2002.

Alan Ray, a spokesman for the Education Department, said that the scores on Math A had gradually improved. In June 2002, 86,000 students took the test, and the passing rate was 61 percent. The department does not yet know how many students took the test last month, but a preliminary survey suggests that only 37 percent of the students passed.

The shift from rote learning to a greater emphasis on mastery of concepts is welcomed by some college professors in math and science, who have been trying to accomplish the same shift. They say that although mastery of some facts is critical, students who focus on memorization may do well in a course but remember little of it six months later.

"Many of the students are coming from an environment where the tests are pretty much about facts, not about how to puzzle something out, or whether the data you have been given makes sense," said Robert B. Suter, a biologist at Vassar College. "It takes students coming in a while to learn that they are in a somewhat different ballgame."

But high school math teachers in New York say that the shift in the state math curriculum has not been smooth, and that schools, teachers and students could not keep up with the changes.

"There has to be a balance between skills and concepts," said Mr. Jaye at Stuyvesant. "But the weight shifted a little too quickly for us to keep equilibrium here, and collectively we capsized.

"I'm not a champion of the old Regents, which was cookie cutter - all skills. If you studied the three previous exams, there would be no surprises. But in the effort not to make Math A cookie cutter, the kids got flamed."

Part of the problem, he and others said, is that the curriculum expanded and expanded, and nothing was taken away. Many teachers felt that they were racing through material without giving students the time they needed to master it.

"One of the big problems is that the curriculum is so broad that you cannot go very deep," said Bob Hazen, president of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State.

"It used to be with the old Math 1, 2 and 3 tests that you could just bone up on old tests and pass them and not have a firm grasp of the concepts," Mr. Hazen said. "But now you are looking at a standards-based assessment, and it is very difficult to look at the past tests and know what will be on the next test."

Some educators say teaching students to be problem solvers takes more skill on the part of teachers, a challenge when there is a shortage of qualified math teachers.

"Teachers are not really prepared to prepare kids for this test properly," said Alfred S. Posamentier, dean of the School of Education, City College of New York, and the author of books on problem solving. "There is very little training for teachers in problem solving; it's assumed they will get it along the way."

Commissioner Mills said he stood by the Math A curriculum.

"There are a great many people who say we should just teach students how to balance a checkbook," he said. "But that is a level of math that is learned by the fourth grade. Are we ready to say that the most minimal level is all students need?"

"The Regents made the fundamental policy choice here, and I support it," he added. "The standards represent a level of knowledge and skill that's essential for every child."

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