Middle-level teachers placed even more emphasis on performance tasks, and included a students contribution to group work as an evaluation tool. Secondary teachers relied strongly on laboratory reports, homework, and objective tests. Math teachers used individual improvement, observations, class participation, and homework as the primary evaluative tools. At the middle and secondary levels, math teachers used homework as the most important evaluation strategy. This condition makes it difficult for districts, and the region, to track changes in achievement patterns or to identify existing or potential achievement gaps.
School districts vary widely in the math and science courses offered to students.
While availability of advanced courses seems to be partially related to district size, it is not a clearly predictive variable. Elementary instructional minutes were gathered from over 40 districts in the region. Math instruction averages 116 minutes per week in Kindergarten, and successively between 209 and 250 minutes in grades 1 through 6. Science instruction averages 58 minutes per week in Kindergarten, between 100 and 136 minutes in grades 1 to 3, successively, and between 182 to 214 minutes per week in grades 4 to 6, successively. These findings are generalized from more detailed data summaries and analyses.