From the PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/education/pssa-scores-drop-few-schools-make-adequate-yearly-progress-654372/
The State Dpt of Ed attributes the drop largely to anti-cheating measures.
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27 comments:
Tribune article:
http://triblive.com/home/2640761-74/district-schools-county-students-cheating-state-department-districts-investigation-scores#axzz27DGCHkCr
- Ed Secretary says drops cannot be attributed just to budget cuts.
Yesterday afternoon a PDE PAAYP
PA 2012 AYP DATA WAS RELEASED!
379 Districts "MADE AYP"
16 Districts are "MAKING PROGRESS"
200 Districts are in "WARNING
PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS is (officially)in"CORRECTIVE ACTION II 4th Year "
Out of 500 Districts in PA there are seven (7) School Districts who fall BELOW Pittsburgh Public Schools in CORRECTIVE ACTION II, 5th Year,6th Year, and 10th Year
These 7 lower achieving Districts are:
READING SCHOOL DISTRICT
ALLENTOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT
YORK SCHOOL DISTRICT
NORRISTOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT
HARRISBURG SCHOOL DISTRICT
CHESTER-UPLAND SCHOOLS
PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS
Is there a link to PPS school by school scores available?
PPS students still have not received their PSSA results.
REALLY? THAT CANNOT BE TRUE!
The State sent INDIVIDUAL STUDENT SCORES (and letters to parents) to ALL 500 PA DISTRICTS on JULY 3rd!
It is the RESPONSIBILITY of the PPS DISTRICT (and all PA Districts) to MAIL/DISTRIBUTE the PSSA RESULTS to every student/parent/guardian!
Questioner, are you saying that this did NOT happen TWO MONTHS AGO????
Correct, students still have not received their PSSA scores. Inquiries sent to the parent hotline are ignored.
Is there any penalty or consequence out there that will force PPS to send them out? Their blantant disregard of "rules" is disturbing and telling.
Well Questioner, that is very difficult to believe; but here is the 2012 PSSA DATA link. PSSA data is now online for all PA DISTRICTS, SCHOOLS, SUBGROUPS, (w/FORMULAS USED),
ETC.
However, PDE DOES NOT PUBLISH (for public access) the INDIVIDUAL STUDENT SCORES (Only PPS has those AND they were SENT to students/parents/guardians in other PA SCHOOL DISTRICTS in early JULY!
http://paayp.emetric.net/District/SchoolList/c2/102027451
So, is it true, according to the PDE stats, that Pittsburgh Public Schools is 493rd out of 500 in PA State performance on PSSA?????????
PPS is 493 out of 500? OMG!
Why not call the Superintendent about this? This cannot be true!
Well in the previous PSSA article that was posted here at PURE REFORM-19 PPS employees were suspects in the PPS PSSA cheating scandal.
Lane said with confidence in print of the mewspaper-they were not cheating and justifiable errs.
Tomalis did not specify specfic cheating or wrong monitoring of PSSA test GIVING procedures. He gave a very accurate true statement with mor correct administration of the test-this will happen.
Basically certain Supers are going to be outrage in their suburban school districts like North Hills SD.
But, what about the PPS so called cheating scandal??
19 PPS employees----quilty or not quilty-that is high number for not qulity.
Yet, they can not mail us the PSSA
indivudal student scores---PPS can not spin this with postage?
When you call you child's school as I have done THEY ARE IN THE MAIL.
No wonder Roosevelt left-sex crimes and cheeating were his future headaches.
Oh, DISREGARD the 2010-11 date at the top of the page.
THIS IS THE 2012 REPORT from PDE.
SOMEONE at PDE forgot to CHANGE the dates at the top of the report!
Boy, is that going to cause confusion to people who do not know!
Pittsburgh is in corrective action ll 4 years according to the DOE. I went to their site and it looks like 5 years things get dicey. PPS made AYP one year, was that 4 years ago?
Pennslyvania Accountability System (PAS)
"Corrective Action II
If a school or district does not meet its AYP for five years in a row, it is subject to governance changes such as reconstitution, chartering, and privatization. In the meantime, improvement plans, school choice, and supplemental education services are still required."
I know some kids have been told their scores at some schools, but I don't know if they've been mailed or sent home to parents yet. My kid (5th grade) still doesn't know scores nor have we received the report.
Note that I've provided ONLY the Pittsburgh link.
HOWEVER, ANYONE can navigate ALL other PA Districts and Schools (including Charters) using this site!
http://paayp.emetric.net/District/SchoolList/c2/102027451
Later, I'll provide the site for performance levels at SCHOOLS and INDIVIDUAL GRADE LEVELS in each school, as well as the break down for every subgroup.
You will the see with CLARITY/EVIDENCE the egregiously wide achievement gaps that exist in schools and at school grade levels.
Shocking Note: COLFAX has an ACHIEVEMENT GAP (between Black and White students) of 50+ points in both Reading and Math!!!!
This is the widest achievement gap ever in any Pittsburgh Public School!
How can PPS be "CHEATING" 56and still be 493 out 500???
The PDE designation of Corrective Action 4 must be wrong!
For the last two of fours years Mrs. Fischetti proudly hung a banner on Bellefield Avenue announcing that PPS made AYP.
A+ Schools, the Rand Corporation, Mathematica Research, Broad Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates have all pointed to Pittsburgh as a national model. We have PULSE, RISE, PELA, Summer Dreamers, and an Office of Effective Teaching. Our leadership is dreaming big and working hard!
How can we have all of this and be one of the 10 worst school districts in the Commonwealth?
I wonder if Solicitor Weiss has dispatched Monaca-based CSI private investigators to uncover the truth about Pittsburgh's cheating scandal.
12:51 - So SAD to say that PPS
WAS NOT designated as "Made AYP" in any of the years you mention! It has been pointed out on this blog and folks have been directed to the link on the PDE website that lists the PA DISTRICTS that made AYP and Pittsburgh Has NEVER been in that category since Roosevelt.
Don't believe it check with PDE.
Again, millions are being spent at PPS on P.R. and that money has done its job! Unfortunately, people do NOT seem to check the facts!
Read the rules for "Made AYP."
The P.R. has worked. Now the PPS problems are covered with a "blame game".
As has been stated here many times before (sometimes published, sometimes not) there are very real, very concrete reasons why PPS students are NOT achieving. The causes are easily remedied, but no one is open to listening to anyone other than central office and too many are not 'equipped' for the positions that they hold, so "blame" has to be assigned either to teachers (who have no choice of what or how to teach) or to some external source.
The outcomes will never improve under the current regime, so sorry to say.
PPS has dropped steadily in PA rankings over the past six years!
Sadly, the BANNERS that have been hung are outright lies!
Even Eleanor Chute acknowledged, privately, that PPS did not "Make AYP" but there was no investigative report.
Of course, we all want Pittsburgh to be seen in a positive image or light; but, you can't get there from blatant untruths. It requires facing the truth and then doing something real about remedying the situation. That's the only real solution to a problem!
No 12:51 the PDE designation is not incorrect.
PPS has been in the past six years one of the 10-20 lowest achieving districts in the state of Pennsylvania.
That is why a PDE team of experts were sent here at no cost to PPS to help get PPS on the right track, academically, but were sent packing by Roosevelt and his PA political connections.
OOPS! Apologies are in order here. Please excuse the serious (indadvertent) grammatical errors in a few places.
The grammar lesson is:
ALWAYS EXCLUDE the object of the preposition (in a prepositional phrase) when determining subject/verb agreement in a sentence (if the subject is followed by a prepositional phrase).
Sorry that the errors slid by in a few blog entries. Apologies from the blogger.
It is wildly hilarious that a political hack like Tomalis has the stones to make the comment that equates higher test scores with cheating.
Prove it, Mr.Tomalis. Prove it.
The bar rises a little each year where the proficiency number is concerned and that in a nutshell likely says a great deal about the PSSA score decline this past year. When scores continue to decline as they likely will--because let's face it, 100% proficiency could only have been dreamed up by someone in an ivory tower somewhere---I am sure that Tomalis will again point to "cheating."
If anyone cheated---and I believe that is highly doubtful---it is administration. Period. In the past five years alone, security has been ramped up to the point that only an administrator could have access to tests.
Tell it like it is, Mr.Tomalis. For once in your life, have some backbone, and quit blaming teachers.
Just to be very, very clear on the misunderstanding embedded in this previous comment:
"The bar rises a little each year where the proficiency number is concerned and that in a nutshell likely says a great deal about the PSSA score decline this past year."
After 15 years of assessing the exact same "thinking skills" on the PSSA (with 10 years of NCLB "accountability", the bar was raised every three years. Now it is being raised every year.
HOWEVER,(and this is a huge however) PPS scores are "dropping" INSTEAD of moving closer to the "bar". The proficiency levels are moving AWAY from the "bar" instead of "TOWARD" the bar.
After 15 years of supposedly teaching the SKILLS needed to be "proficient" on the PSSA (a minimum standard assessment) PPS has schools/grades/graduating classes that were NOT even 35% proficient dropping this year to 20% proficient. WHY? WHY? WHY?
So last year they were 50 pts. below the minimum target and when the target moved up 10 pts, they became 70 pts. away from the target even though they had another year of instruction????
Enough said? (Please let me know if this isn't.)
Anon at 5:57, there you go again. You have a flair for the redundant, it appears.
"After 15 years of assessing the exact same "thinking skills" on the PSSA (with 10 years of NCLB "accountability", the bar was raised every three years. Now it is being raised every year. "
Yes, we all know the latter and where the former is concerned, why is it pertinent? I am a 29 year teacher. So what? Anyone involved in teaching in the areas has background in "thinking skills" where test-taking strategies are concerned. Why the high hat?
"HOWEVER,(and this is a huge however) PPS scores are "dropping" INSTEAD of moving closer to the "bar". The proficiency levels are moving AWAY from the "bar" instead of "TOWARD" the bar.
After 15 years of supposedly teaching the SKILLS needed to be "proficient" on the PSSA (a minimum standard assessment) PPS has schools/grades/graduating classes that were NOT even 35% proficient dropping this year to 20% proficient. WHY? WHY? WHY?"
I would think that you are being facetious here. Why? Perhaps the issue is a failed curriculum. In ELA especially, continually ramrodding home the idea of "gist" and "significant moments" falls woefully short in providing students what they need to take such tests. This is no surprise to anyone who has done more than 'study' the tests. What we have been forced to teach has been the result of a shameful pissing contest that goes on with Pitt's IFL. Teachers write the curriculum and it gets sent to Pitt. When it returns, it is a shadow of what was sent. Hey, but it is politically correct and it does reflect Pitt's ivory tower thinking, no?
"So last year they were 50 pts. below the minimum target and when the target moved up 10 pts, they became 70 pts. away from the target even though they had another year of instruction????
Enough said? (Please let me know if this isn't.)"
You're preaching to the choir here and again, covering ground that has been on this site ad infinitum for a great many months now.
As long as PPS "leadership" feels the need to have consultants running the show and as long as they accept big money awards, it will be an educational institution in name only. We are not teaching kids how to think, but rather, what to think. We are not providing students with what they need for testing and further on, college. And this hypocrisy is known even on Bellefield, where they have concocted a 50% policy to deal with it.
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Sorry about the redundancy. It stems from the fact that over and over again, posts here state things that reflect misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and misdirected comments. It makes one wonder if anyone truly "gets" the very real possibility that this (excellence and equity in education for all) is doable (legitimately) without accusations, excuses, consultants, and a litany of complaints about this, that or the other.
There has never been disagreement here about the PPS Curricula, RISE, PELA, and many other CO decisions.
There is disagreement about many posts blaming students, parents, and community. Oops, no more redundancies! Finis.
9:49 - The point about "thinking skills" was NOT a reference to "test-taking strategies."
Frankly, you do not need "test-taking strategies" for the PSSA; since the test is NOT constructed with "distractors" NOR all of the other "practice lessons" that were rolled out in February of this year, prior to the test.
However, students do need to be taught the "thinking skills" that are assessed on PSSA and the "Next Generation Assessments" based on the new COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS.
The new "redundancy" here will be around these new STATE STANDARDS which require students to be able to think, simultaneously, on multiple levels. (Without FINIS!)
Sorry that this cannot be detailed, sufficiently, here; and, heaven knows, more confusion or redundancy
will only be more counterproductive.
Anon at 12:45 and 1:38, very well stated. I don't think I've ever seen a teacher here blame a parent. No way. And where students are concerned, I don't think anyone has blamed them, either, at least not with regards to standardized tests. I've always equated our preparation for PSSA's that comes from our curriculum as being akin to Mike Tomlin having the Steelers limiting practice time to an hour or two during the week before the big game, or having the guys play checkers, as well.
What remains bothersome to me is that PPS admin is beyond questioning in all regards. I guess I can say that I "blame" numerous sources for this: our union, our own collective fear as teachers, the apathy of parents, the media. But it is a microcosm of the times, too.
I agree, this is all do-able, but with the corruption that has come with big money, I don't see us getting out from under this boulder anytime soon. It's a shame: this district has fooled the public into thinking we are all in the 'salad days' for our students and yet, administrative decisions have failed our kids in the long run.
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