Legislation designed to open advanced math classes up to more low-income students statewide received unanimous approval Wednesday in the House.
House Bill 986 originally extended compliance reporting on programs to teach cursive writing and multiplication tables in schools, but Reps. Chris Malone, R-Wake, and Ed Hanes, D-Forsyth, tacked on a provision requiring schools to place all students who receive top scores on end-of-grade math tests to be placed in advanced math courses the following year.
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Hanes cited a study that found 9,000 low-income North Carolina students were placed in lower-level math classes after getting a superior score – a 5 on a 1-to-5 scale – on a year-end test.
"They are being intentionally left out. They are being judged as 'not creative enough,'" he said.
As a result, more affluent children with lower scores, including his own daughter, were provided space in academically gifted programs or higher-level math courses, Hanes said.
"Bright, young people need ladders rather than nets. This legislation provides such a ladder," he said.
Malone said the Wake County Public School System noted such disparities in its advanced math classes when he was on the school board several years ago. When the district opened algebra to more qualified students, he said, enrollment jumped 44 percent, and overall end-of-grade math scores improved.
Parents whose children score 5 on math tests would have the option of placing them in a lower-level course the following year under the measure, which now heads to the Senate.