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High gehools'and middle schools begin developing learning strategies within and ~oetwe~n depart- <br /> ments on how to reinforce the SAT skills across the curriculum, Major concentration in the following <br /> <br /> 1. Higher level thinking and complex analys~s. <br /> 2. Extensive reading and.writing inst~'uction in all content areas. <br /> 3. Integrate skills in comblnation with regular course content. <br /> 4. Attention given to the four verbal 'skills tested: recognizing antonyms, completing analogies, <br /> choosing best word for sentence completions, reading comprehension. <br /> 5. Early vocabulary emphasis on prefix, suffix, root word in helping with definition. (Etymology <br /> incorporated throughout vocabulary studies) <br /> 6. Evaluate the possibility of adding Latin to me curriculum. <br /> <br /> Develop a budget that supports curriculum plans. Such considerations would include: I. Additional positions in secondary schools to allow department chairs additional planning time (a <br /> small component of the lead teacher concept). <br /> 2. An additional central office staff position designed to develop, implement, and supervise curricu- <br /> lum revision. <br /> 3. The addition of one counselor at each high school. <br /> 4. Additional staffdevelopment money to begin training teachers to move into new frontiers of <br /> instructional presentation. <br /> 5. Additional em'ichment resources'for the classrooms such as computers, media materials, soft- <br /> ware, texts,journals, cultural programs, etc~ <br /> 6. Money for teachers' stipends for exlended employment as they become involved in the revi- <br /> sion of local school curriculum plans. <br /> 7. Money and space for a centralized/school site professional library. <br /> 8. Class size reduction, especially in upper level English classes to prevent teacher-grading over <br /> load where courses require extensive ~tudent writing. <br /> <br /> EVALUATIVE CRITERIA <br /> <br /> In order to evaluate the progress of students as the SAT/PSAT curriculum strategies are implemented, <br />it is necessary to determine the expected increase in scores for each school and for the system. In comparing <br />mean scores~ for the last three ~ears at the school level, considering the standard error~(plus or minus 30 <br />points) and extrapolating that statisfc into 1989-90, we conservatively expect an increase of 10 points for both <br />the Verbal and Mathematics at the school level. <br /> As'the number of students increase, it becomes more difficult to raise a mean score. For the system then, <br />we are expecting at least a 5 point increase on the mean score. 'This represents one-fourth of a standard <br />deviation. <br /> One may look at the actual points and question the modest proportional increase; however, we must <br />caution ourselves that we are dealing with aggregate statistical data with a mean score. It will take many <br />individ~lal students scoring better than ten points on each section to increase the average mean 10 points. <br /> <br /> <br />