Schools : Education news : TeWinkle Students Go to Top in Algebra
When Jean Winfield arrived at TeWinkle Middle School in the fall of 1993, the math teacher set out to offer algebra, which had not been taught for years to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Costa Mesa school.
Winfield discovered was that the students not only had an aptitude for algebra, they were enthusiastic about it. Algebra was reintroduced to the school in 1994, and Winfield enrolled 26 students in the course.
Now the results of that first year are in, and the school has declared the program a success. Students from TeWinkle outperformed all other Newport-Mesa Unified School District middle school pupils in algebra on the Golden State exam, a statewide aptitude test.
Three TeWinkle students--Crystal Muraoka, Ryan Miller and Haunani Nakabara--scored in the top 7% statewide and were awarded high honors for their exam results.
Eight others scored in the top 10% and received honors for their performance. In all, more than four-fifths of the class scored in the top 13% of all those tested.
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