Test score melt down in high school

From the Allentown Morning Call

Test score melt down in high school

By Genevieve Marshall, Steve Esack and William J. Ford Of The Morning Call, August 17, 2008

Between the last year of middle school and the junior year in high school, something happens to Pennsylvania students -- and it's not just puberty.

After years of building on math and reading skills and showing consistent gains on state tests, those improvements come to a screeching halt in high school. Not only do students stop improving in reading, they actually seem to lose math skills.

''It's almost like falling off a cliff,'' said state Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak.

Two out of every five Pennsylvania high school students tested below grade level in the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment reading and math tests, which were released last week.

At the current pace of improvement, it would take 40 years for all high school juniors to meet standards, Zahorchak said -- even though they're expected to do so within six years.

''Clearly we need to do more to improve the high school experience and ensure those students stay engaged and challenged through graduation,'' Zahorchak said. ''We simply cannot afford to be content with the status quo.''

With the federal No Child Left Behind law pushing states to make all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, Pennsylvania school districts, including those in the Lehigh Valley area, have a long way to go.

The 35 school districts in the eight-county area averaged a double-digit drop in the percentage of students that scored proficiently between eighth grade and 11th grade. The drop was significant regardless of race and income, though it was worse for minority, low-income and special education students.

This generation of students wants to understand the reason behind a classroom lesson or standardized test in order to put in the effort, said Kevin Bush, a social studies teacher and track coach at Bethlehem's Liberty High School. There is no consequence for poor performers, he said. The test is not factored into students' grades or directly tied to graduation.

''On the second day of school students will be taking a state test,'' Bush said. ''Students are so over-tested right now without seeing what the relevance is.''

It's a matter of priorities, said Cedar Beach lifeguard Nick Carbonetto, an incoming William Allen High School senior who said he did not study for the state tests because he was busy with soccer, baseball and organizing the prom.

''Colleges don't focus on PSSAs, but the SATs,'' he said.

Matt Trexler, also a senior at Allen, said he studied for the spring PSSA during class and at night when he got home from his part-time job at a restaurant.

With the help of a $9.6 million federal grant, Lee Kern, a Lehigh University professor, is leading a team of researchers to find ways educators can help high-schoolers succeed and not drop out.

Kern said data do not explain why scores fall in high school. But they do show that the problem is worse for low-income students.

''Poor attendance and homework completion become more problematic with secondary-age students,'' Kern said. ''Also, families who are more affluent are probably more concerned about test scores, given that they anticipate their children will go to college.''

'We don't teach reading'

Searching for new ideas, state education officials are pushing a controversial plan for more and different exams. They also propose a standardized curriculum for high schools.

An undetermined amount of this year's education budget will go toward creating a standardized curriculum for math, English, science and social studies, said Leah Harris, spokeswoman for the state Education Department.

Districts would not be required to adopt the new curriculum but it would give struggling schools better guidelines, Harris said.

The controversy is centered on a plan to require students to pass six of 10 state-created final exams in order to receive for a diploma. The plan has stalled as the Legislature reviews it.

In the past three years, the Education Department has launched several programs targeting high school student performance.

Classrooms for the Future provides students with laptops and gives teachers intensive training in how to use them in class. Dual Enrollment pitches in $10 million to cover tuition for high-schoolers who want to earn college credits.

But neither of those programs has racked up results in the short term.

Among the more creative ideas was Project 720 -- for the total amount of days teenagers spend in high school. It breaks large schools into small academies of up to 600 students. Class sizes shrink and class periods grow longer.

But like the other programs that have sparked hope among educators, Project 720 has not proved to be a silver bullet.

Last year, the Norristown Area School District was one of the first in the state to reorganize its high school under Project 720. Lisa Andrejko, then district superintendent. led the effort to break the 2,000-student school into six academies.

Norristown Area did not make adequate yearly progress this year, PSSA results show.

One year is not enough time to judge the project a failure, said Andrejko, who now heads Quakertown Area School District. It takes at least five years to get hard data, she said.

The solution isn't merely in teaching with computers or in smaller groups, Andrejko said. It will require a greater emphasis on basic reading instruction, she said, the kind students receive in elementary school.

''We don't teach reading in high school,'' Andrejko noted.

Employers and colleges have told state education officials that Pennsylvania high school graduates, on the whole, are not up to speed in writing, reading and math, Harris said.

''They're graduating without basic skills,'' she said. ''That's a problem for the student, and for the entire state.''

Getting back to the basics

Easton Area High School administrators created a program to reinforce basic math and reading skills in the classroom and during after-school tutoring.

Bangor Area High School received a warning from the state because its 11th-graders didn't score high enough on the math or reading test.

Pat Mulroy, assistant superintendent of the Bangor Area School District, partly blames the same factors affecting high schools across the state: a lack of funding and slow-moving reform.

For decades, education policy and funding have focused on teaching preschool and elementary school students how to read. Only in the last decade have policy experts realized high schools need that help, too.

Bangor High needs, but cannot afford, four reading specialists, Mulroy said. And those specialists are usually trained at the elementary level.

So Bangor is retraining its high school teachers to teach reading and math in all content areas, she said. Now, ''every teacher is a teacher of math or reading.''

Allentown's middle-schoolers have made the transition almost seamlessly to high school in terms of reading retention. Nearly 46 percent of eighth-graders were proficient compared with 43 percent of high school juniors.

In math, though, their decline is clear. Just over half of Allentown's eighth-graders scored proficient or better on the math PSSA this year, compared with 39 percent of 11th-graders.

Allentown Superintendent Karen S. Angello said that when those juniors were in middle school, not enough was done to rescue students who were close to failing. That's why three years ago, the district began placing at-risk students in back-to-back math periods, offering intensive tutoring and additional math courses, she said.

This year, the district plans to hire more math coaches and begin tracking student progress on a daily basis. With early intervention, Angello said, they will spot problems sooner.

In the Bethlehem Area School District, Superintendent Joseph Lewis is planning major changes at his two high schools this fall, with the focus on reading and math. Because Liberty High School has failed to significantly improve its scores over a number of years, it is technically eligible for state takeover, although Zahorchak, the state education secretary, said that possibility was ''remote.''

Every student will take Algebra I in ninth grade -- no exceptions, Lewis said.

''It's time to stop complaining about the test,'' he said. ''It's not necessarily about meeting the targets, but showing our kids can grow.''