PSSA fails students, some say
By Andy McNeil Staff writer amcneil@observer-reporter.com
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After the state Department of Education announced this month that nearly half of schools across the commonwealth did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress requirements on the state’s standardized achievement tests for 2011-12, some in the education community are asking whether the high-stakes tests could be failing students – not the other way around.

While state Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis chalked up the declining test scores partially to amplified security measures put in place as the result of an ongoing cheating investigation, many school officials contend that increasing performance targets annually without taking into account socioeconomics or properly accommodating special education students is unreasonable.

“I’ve never seen such a concerted effort to destroy public education as is going on right now in this country, and how they’re doing it is through this testing,” said Dr. James Longo, chairman of the education department at Washington & Jefferson College.

Longo referred to the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests as “economic blackmail” and said forcing teachers to cater their curriculum to it doesn’t allow for the individual needs of the students to be met.





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Burgettstown Area School District Superintendent Deborah Jackson called Tomalis’ comments “appalling,” stating they were demeaning to rest of those in the education community who work hard every day.
Established under the federal No Child Left Behind law, AYP is based on the results of PSSA testing and is determined by academic, graduation, attendance and test participation standards. The tests cost the state $20 million annually, according to state Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller.

In Washington and Greene counties, fewer than half of local schools made AYP. Additionally, five of 14 Washington County school districts and all five Greene County school districts failed to make the cut as the number of districts achieving AYP statewide plummeted by nearly 33 percent.

For 2011-12, AYP proficiency targets increased to 78 percent in math, up from 67 percent, and to 81 percent from 72 percent for reading. By spring 2014, both targets will reach 100 percent – meaning every student is expected to make the grade.

“The dilemma is that we’re dealing with people – we’re not making cars,” said Dr. Roberta DiLorenzo, superintendent of Washington School District. She explained that numerous dynamics come into play to spark learning, including a student’s home life, and one test isn’t going to be able to assess that.

“There’s no silver bullet that will put out a school where everyone will be 100 percent proficient,” she DiLorenzo.

Matt Blair, technology coordinator for Central Greene School District, which did not make AYP, said he believed the district made progress, but the bar is being raised further and further to an unreasonable distance.

“I don’t think anybody has a problem with accountability if the standards are reasonable,” he said.

A number of local districts felt the sting of missing AYP due to graduation rates even if academic targets were hit.

Washington did not make AYP because of its graduation rate, but DiLorenzo said that isn’t going to deter her staff from helping students earn a diploma, even if it takes five years.

“That’s a hit we’re going to have to take,” she said. “We’d prefer having completers.”

DiLorenzo and Burgettown’s Jackson both pointed out that even though federal law allows special education students to stay in school until age 21, those students are counted against the district’s AYP.

“It doesn’t seem right that we would be penalized because we’re following what the federal law says to do,” Jackson said.

For 2011-12, the state not only measured how many students who started in ninth grade finish in four years, but also broke down the data into subgroups, including race, special education and economically disadvantaged.

McGuffey School District met all of its academic targets but failed to make AYP after missing the graduation target for its economically disadvantaged subgroup. Superintendent Beverly Arbore said the district would have made AYP if seven more students from the subgroup had graduated.

With regard to the relationship between socioeconomics and AYP results, the seven districts in Washington and Greene counties with the highest percentage of residents living below poverty level failed to make AYP, according to 2000 census data. Additionally, of the 10 local districts with the lowest median family income levels, just two made AYP.

Longo asked how the state can fault children forced to raise their siblings, not because their mother and father don’t care, but because parents are struggling to make ends meet by working multiple jobs.

At West Greene School District, which carries the area’s highest poverty rate, 20.3 percent, Superintendent Thelma Szarell said schools are being paralyzed by the PSSA testing parameters that make no adaptations for students who need them. A child with an Individualized Education Plan for a reading disability, for example, must take the test with the same time constraints as a peer without an IEP. Szarell likened it to a child who is unable to walk being asked to run a race. “You take a child who is physically disabled in a wheelchair, and at test time you say, ‘OK child, get up, you’re going to run this race,’” Szarell said. “We are asking them to run a race, and it is a very rigorous one, right along with everybody else who has done well in school from the time they started.

“I have witnessed children crying, taking these tests, who look up at me and say, ‘Don’t you think I’d do well if I could?’” Making a similar analogy, Charleroi Area School District Superintendent Brad Ferko said forcing a child with a third-grade reading level to take a fifth-grade readinglevel test would be like asking him to read a book in Chinese. “There are other ways that we can measure whether a school is making adequate progress,” he said.

Ferko said he has seen the arts save students and watched how technology allows children with IEPs to make breakthroughs – neither of which is measured by the test.

Ferko said the test can also divide a district, explaining that while Charleroi middle and elementary schools made AYP, the high school did not. He said teachers from a building that did not make AYP may feel their colleagues are looking down on them even if they’re working just as hard.

DiLorenzo said the divisive nature of the test extends beyond the schools and into to the community.

“You’re looking at subgroups and labeling them as a liability,” she said.

This spring, the Keystone Exams, which focus specifically on algebra, biology and literature, will be phased in for 11th graders in place of the PSSA tests. Ferko said these exams are a step in the right direction, but he’s not keen on testing students on specific subjects they may have taken several years before.

Longo said he would like to see a test given to assess the abilities of every lawmaker to ensure they are fit for office.

“If they did that, that would be the end of high-stakes testing,” Longo said.