Texas District To Start "Double-Block" Classes For High Schoolers Failing State Math, Science Tests

The Abilene (TX) Reporter-News (6/1, Peters) reports that "As part of a new initiative to close the achievement gap, underclassmen" at "in Abilene and Cooper High schools" who failed to pass state standardized tests in math and science this year "will be getting new schedules this summer placing them in two-hour blocks of one or both of those subjects." The "double block" classes "will be smaller and taught by teachers specially picked -- and paid as much as $20,000 extra -- for their intervention strategies." In order to take these classes, students may "have to give up some electives." The Reporter-News notes that in 2008-09, the Abilene school system's "two high schools were on the verge of earning the state's lowest academic rating," a fewer "than 60 percent of minority students passed math or science." And while official reports of this year's test scores "won't be released until July," school "administrators say improvement already is evident."