On another post Anonymous wrote:
ossibly a new post:
On the (now) televised Legislative
Meeting, Mrs. Hazuda proclaimed that PPS will probably not make
AYP again this years because “the criteria have been raised”.
My
question is: Why would you NOT expect or require that the
CRITERIA be RAISED when in fact PPS is far below the PA State
Standards for “Proficiency.”
(And, again, comparatively
speaking PPS is 494th if number of districts in PA is 500.
(Whatever the number of districts, there are only six districts
that are poorer in proficiency in the state of
Pennsylvania.)
PPS students are NOT well-served in a
District that is in CORRECTIVE ACTION II, 4th year after 10 years
of accountability to the very SAME PA Academic Standards. And
yet a Board member states that we will NOT make AYP because the
criteria has been raised. Does the PPS Board expect the
criteria be lowered so that Pittsburgh can make AYP?
Unbelievable!
Mrs. Colaizzi states that achievement is
higher than it has ever been, yet, after 10 years of trying to
reach the PA standard PPS is 30 to 40 to 50 points below the
State minimum standard. The majority of African American
students are more than 50 pts below the standard. Ten years ago
they were only 20 points below the standard.
The facts are
the facts and they are publicly accessible on the PDE
website. To believe the PPS PR spin is truly unconscionable and
DIS-SERVES our children who deserve “equity and excellence.”
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17 comments:
So applying today's achievement levels to the criteria that were in place in 2005, 2006, etc.- would PPS make AYP?
In other words, taking all of the subgroups into account- is it correct that if we applied 2005, etc. percentages to today's results, PPS would make AYP? And if not, why not- would PPS meet the overall % requirement for proficiency but have subgroups that do not meet the standard?
This is a great post about education reform. It was written by someone in LA.
http://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/a-confederacy-of-reformers/
I am afraid that I don't understand. Did the standards only increase for PPS?
How are other schools making progress without intervention by Broad/Gates/Walton?
They are certainly making more progress than Pittsburgh. Many are making much more progress. Let us just say that there are 494 districts that are making more progress than PPS. Or put another way, there are only six districts in Pennsylvania that are making less progress than PPS.
And, YES, the exact same standards are in place for all 500 or so districts in this state!
Our Board members are very gullible in that they believe administration's excuses instead of examining the PA data and doing a comparative analysis.
It is impossible to understand why Colaizzi and Hazuda could make such statement. It sure raises lots of questions about their competence as Board members representing the students in PPS. What is their end game? Compete annihilation of city schools?
I think there is an elephant in the room--WHY oh WHY does the board not "get" that the script doesnt work? Why are taxpayers accepting this falling of our schools that were WAY better 6 years ago? Why do they all feel so trapped? What will it take to wake up a city? Is it the kool-aid of the promise? Has money changed hands? What advantage is it to "go along to get along" as a board? When your parent-consitutients complain, why dont you investigate?
The parents KNOW it isnt "bad teachers"- they know the CBA is a joke, and our scores are close to the bottom of the state.
The Sto-Rox Board knows about the "poor" Keystone Exams; but does PPS's Board know about the very poor scores at some of PPS high schools?
Ms Hazuda and Ms Colaizzi do you know where the students in your district high school stand after this year's administration of Keystone Exams.
What is being done to let students, parents, and community know so that they can remediate students before the next opportunity to re-take these exams?
How are all kept abreast of progress or lack thereof?
Or will you say "we didn't know" or "there wasn't a chance to get ready for a re-take"? Will there just be more excuses?
Students have the chance to re-take the Keystones, so what is being done to get them ready? Same old, same old?
I'm sure they'll hire a director or another batch of consultants to figure it out. Then the PG will put out a positive press release on the new hirings
Dear Heaven, in this week of Passover and Easter, please help us find a way to flip the degenerative situation in our city schools!
Audacity and Capacity are absent. Consultant will not and cannot bring it. Provide the faith necessary to build audacity to fortify capacity. Our children are the prayer!
It is encouraging to hear the CBAs called a joke. It hints at the fact that there are teachers who know what an assessment should look like while other posts hint at the fact that PPS is testing students to death! (Non-productively, to boot.)
A year or two back PPS spent $10,000 to bring in Dylan William for one day to provide professional development on "formative assessment". A few central office folks were at this PD, but not the entire district. The ENTIRE district needs to really understand the concept and implement it. Formative assessment is not testing, it is not CBAs, it is not a test at all! Do teachers know that? Do they understand the meaning of "formative"? It is not apparent anywhere in the district!
It is wrong to have CO people fast-forwarding information erroneously. If you bring in someone at a cost of $10,000 a day, it is obvious that you are trusting his expertise and experience. Then why not require ALL teachers to hear Dylan William not a subverted version of his theories delivered by PPS non-educators to some teachers, if at all, or without clarity and comprehension?
Students and teachers in PPS are suffering greatly due to the incompetence of central office people. (And the beat goes on . . and on . . and on.)
Because formative assessment is not a " written test bent on frying a teacher" so this isnt a message they want sent.
Dirty secret 2-- real reason arts are out... Not just mpre time for test prep that is a con-- real reason --
The arts, time in the library reading. For pleasure-- chosing what you read
Cant be measured by their tests!
But spending time reading will result in better verbal scores. And they know that.
The problem is that yes, we know that overall readers do better... But you cant measure an individual teacher on a student's overall growth-- as a parent, you see kids grow -- reading signs, checkin' out the GPS, -- real life. CO wants to nail a teacher so measuring how a student reads a paragraph is their goal. Listen to your iids-- how juch time did YOU spend reading with a stop watch-- outside of a specific test once a year? Thefe is nothing "natural" about Read Naturally.
So, it is bizarre unnatural and it isnt working!
2:54 - Sorry, but the arts, music, library, sports, clubs, and all sorts of creative and seemingly extraneous activities will tremendously increase achievement and standardized test scores. Eliminating these are what is causing the decline in achievement, believe it or not.
Who reads with a "stop watch". The PSSAs are definitely NOT timed tests.
Students have as much time as they need. They can work on them until they finish---all the way to the end of the test
Anon 2:54 you are SDO right-- that is the reason that scores and everything e;se has tanked.. but no one wants to admit it.
As fqar as "stop watch"-- look into all the remedial programs encompassed in Real Time Intervention. One of the programs- REad Naturaly- comes with little stopwatches-- this and other programs are timed to improve "fluency" -- some elementary programs are built to reading nonsense words as quickly as possible- again to encourage quick decoding skills.
There are reading specialists in this district that know what garbage this stuff is.
PPS needs leadership and qualified, autonomous teachers, NOT programs and consultants.
Does anyone know if PPS currently hires qualified, certified teachers who also have reading specialist certification?
That's what they need K-12.
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