New stats for PSSAs

From the Inquirer.

Pa.: New stats better gauge student achievement
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer, Posted on Mon, Apr. 6, 2009

When results of the recent PSSA tests are released this summer, they will likely show a dramatic increase in the number of schools meeting state-mandated No Child Left Behind proficiency standards.

Last year, 72 percent of Pennsylvania public schools met the marks, based primarily on the math and reading tests for grades three to eight and 11. In the Philadelphia area, 65 percent of schools met the benchmarks.

This year, close to 250 more schools across the state - about 28 percent of those that did not meet the standards last year - could achieve the proficiency levels, based on projections from 2008 scores.

The increase would not be the result of academic progress, however, but would come from a new statistical method of calculating test results that provides other benefits as well by helping educators analyze student and school performance in more in-depth ways.

For the first time this year, schools will get credit for meeting state standards if statistical projections of students' test results show enough improvement in coming years, even if the children are not performing at grade level now. Fifteen states use similar systems.

"We now have a scientific method of projecting whether or not a school . . . will bring a grade or a group to proficiency," Gerald Zahorchak, the Pennsylvania secretary of education, said in an interview. "It's the power of a new way to look at data - to look at whether schools have really made and will be making progress with their students."

In preparation for using projected test scores to meet proficiency standards, the state has assigned each student an identification number, allowing the system to track PSSA results from year to year. The tracking numbers were instituted in 2006, but this is the first year that past test scores will be used to calculate school proficiency.

Kristen Lewald, state coordinator for the new PSSA tracking system, said that just as a baseball player's batting average is a good predictor of how good a hitter he or she will be in, "the best predictor of a student's performance is their history."

Before this year, school-achievement calculations were based on the current-year scores of all students in the tested grades as well as other groups: minorities, special-education students, English-language learners, and low-income students.

If 56 percent of students in all groups score proficient or above in math and 63 percent are proficient in reading, a school meets state standards, called making adequate yearly progress. Schools where test scores show sizable improvement also make the grade. Those that don't meet the standards must act to improve performance; continued failure leads to increasingly drastic sanctions.

Starting this year, each school's proficiency will be measured by those scoring methods and by the new statistical projections, which educators call the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS).

Tracking individual student performance through identification numbers is a better way to determine whether schools are doing their job, education experts say.

In districts where many students move to new schools or out of the area from one year to the next, for example, comparing school scores for last year's third grade and this year's fourth grade would not tell much about how well the school is educating children. That's because many students would not be the same ones who took the test the year before. The new system solves that problem by tracking students' performance no matter what school or district they are in.

As a result, the new tracking system has become a powerful new diagnostic tool, helping educators get a good grasp on how students are progressing, said Victoria Gehrt, assistant superintendent of the Kennett Consolidated School District.

Gehrt said her district uses the tracking data to figure out everything from how well a new math curriculum is working to analyzing whether students at all achievement levels are making a year's worth of academic progress in a year's time.

"It's a great tool - the PSSA score only tells if students are proficient but it doesn't tell you whether you are making a difference - whether there is student growth from year to year," she said.

In the West Chester Area School District, the tracking system helps schools make earlier sixth-grade placements, using score projections from previous years, said Robert Culp, the district's elementary math and science assessment director.

In Montgomery County's Methacton district, the tracking system was used to analyze the effectiveness of some lower-level math courses that were eventually eliminated, superintendent Timothy Quinn said. And it is used to make sure students are taking courses that are rigorous enough to challenge them, he said. "Getting As and scoring proficient on the state tests is not enough," Quinn said. The tracking system, he added, "really pushes high-achieving districts like ours to ask, 'Are we doing as much as possible?' "

The student tracking system, which began with a $4 million federal grant to the state in 2005, has other uses as well. Starting with the senior class of 2010, for example, the Education Department will be able to accurately calculate four-year high school drop-out rates, a key statistic that has been difficult to compute.

The department now collects student demographic and attendance information, school staff demographics and courses taught, school course offerings, and what courses students take.

In the fall, the system will be extended to Pennsylvania's 14 community colleges and 14 State System of Higher Education universities; state-related and private colleges also have been invited to join. The state wants to better understand how students can be adequately prepared for college and how they do once they get there.

With a prekindergarten through college tracking system, Zahorchak said, "the possibilities are limited only by our imagination."