On another post Anonymous wrote:
"
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2014/12/20/Allegheny-County-schools-show-little-change-in-test-scores.print
The PG just reported the highest and lowest-performing school DISTRICTS in the state.
The list shows Duquesne, Wilkinsburg, Sto-Rox, and Clairton as the lowest. These DISTRICTS have only ONE High School.
In PPS, Westinghouse, Perry and Milliones have even LOWER scores than Duquesne Wilkinsburg, Sto-Rox and Clairton.
PPS as a DISTRICT has a higher average because it has many high school with higher scores like CAPA, Sci-Tech and Allderdice.
So many Pittsburgh kids are in worse schools with worse scores than Duquesne, Wilkinsburg, Clairton, etc."
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24 comments:
On another post Anonymous wrote:
"Pittsburgh PRIORITY schools among the lowest 5% in PA for academic achievement include the following:
Westinghouse, Faison, Brashear, King and Perry (along with Duquesne).
Pittsburgh FOCUS schools among the lowest 10% in PA include: Arlington, Arsenal, Carrick, Langley, Lincoln, Miller, Milliones, Montessori, Morrow, Spring Hill, and Woolslair. "
Middle school scores are almost always considerably higher than high school scores, and so 6-12 schools get a reporting boost over 9-12 schools. Milliones could very well join Westinghouse and Perry in the bottom 5% if high school scores were reported separately.
All PPS comprehensive schools except Allderdice are in the bottom 5 or 10%; it is especially worth noting that the "teachers academy" HS, Brashear, is in the bottom 5% and that students of the closed Langley don't seem better off, having moved from Focus status to Priority status at Brashear.
Isn't Westinghouse a 6-12 school just like Milliones?
Brashear and Perry and Carrick are 9-12. Correct?
Yes; including 6-8 scores boosts a school's average, but even with that boost the school may end up in "Priority" status.
To allow comparison reports should break out middle school and high school results.
i am trying to figure out what all this means. it is disheartening enough to hear on undercover boss that city employees are struggling to send their kids to non-public schools, then this article comes out and it seems like little has changed for the better over the past 10 years. the final page of a school's report shows how many non-highly certified teachers are on staff and how many are teaching under emergency certification. since brashear (picked randomly) is a teacher training center is it expected that it has 50 non-highly-certified and 17 on emergency certification? the state says:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=506867&mode=2
It is sad to say PPS is among schools with lowest score performance in the area how can that be when PPS have more financial and technical support by way of corporate america ,foundations and get this kind of outcome compare to such schools as Wilkinsburg,Duquesne !!!!!!
PPS puts a lot of resources toward teacher development instead as well need STUDENT LEARNING DEVELOPMENT to help enhance their EDUCATION performance .Oh it is strange the only successful school PPS is CAPA why they doing well and others failing my point is what is CAPA doing and other schools struggling don't make since is CAPA a private school under the radar in PPS district why not use their success ways and use in rest of PPS dist in reality CAPA is not part of PPS dist. Or they have own school dist administration and staff ,board ,Superintendent !!!!!think about that folks
Remember that students entering CAPA are not representative of the district as a whole- unless something has changed recently, they must have a 3.0 average in middle school even to apply. And students with good GPA's have fewer behavioral issues as well. Why it is that the arts school should have the stiffest academic entrance requirements has never been explained.
The parents and home life of CAPA students are also atypical of PPS. At the PPS school where I teach around 40% of students in my class have an incarcerated parent, many have undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses, at least 3 out of 18 can't see and need glasses, etc etc,
We are so quick to compare differences in teaching etc, let's look at the difference in the parents of the children at the high performing schools like CAPA vs one of the bottom 5%.
Look at the average age and education of the parents, the safety of the home and neighborhoods, the food, shelter, and medical care provided by the parents, the incarceration rate of the parents, how many children are homeless, how many are living with substance abusers, how many children are caring for themselves and siblings, how many children are being mentally, physically, emotionally abused or neglected. These things tend to be the norm at the bottom 5% schools and tend not to occur at the top schools.
Teachers aren't miracle workers and children, no matter how much they want to learn, can't do their best in deplorable home conditions. I have taught in bottom 5% schools for the past 11 years and work my butt off to give my students what they truly are lacking, a stable family life.
Evidence that PPS has 16 schools that among the LOWEST 10% in the STATE of Pennsylvania SHOULD BE a CALL to ACTION!
That CALL to ACTION should include ALL PITTSBURGH residents and taxpayers! Thousands and thousands of children NOT BEING EDUCATED by a school system that receives HUGE amounts of money to EDUCATE, not just a few advantaged, upper-middle class students, BUT ALL of the students in our Pittsburgh Public Schools.
If they, PPS, cannot do that (EDUCATE) for ALL children, then there is NO REASON for their existence.
Babysitters and community agencies (without any certification or prescribed qualifications) could and would do a better job!
Institutions that do NOT SERVE their constituencies
according to their mission and goals have no right to exist. Is there general agreement to that rationale? Or does the right to a paycheck (and raises) exist WITHOUT ANY ACCOUNTABILITY?
Have to agree...
Last school year the COUNT for African-American students NOT being EDUCATED by PPS was close to 7,000 students. This is the number who were NOT PROFICIENT based on the state's once a year, minimum academic assessment in Reading and/or Math.
The Graduation Rate in PPS far EXCEEDS the minimum "Proficiency" rates of students in the majority of PPS high schools. What does that tell you? Why can't our students get the education that qualifies them for graduation, college and careers?
If PPS expects the parents and community to educate the children, then the parents and community should get the finances, funds, grants, etc. that are being wasted by PPS administrators who have failed our students!
At the December Legislative Meeting, the Superintendents Contract was APPROVED for $235,000 flat (not counting the bonuses).
The eight other Assistant Superintendents are also being paid substantially beyond the 6-figure amount.
If the payment is for PR, then they deserve it! With few EXCEPTIONS, student achievement, is NOT PPS's Central Office area of experience, expertise or accomplishment! Someone prove the contrary!
When you check PDE's recently released "DISTRICT Required Federal Reporting Measures" you will see that Pittsburgh Public Schools 2014 GOALS for students were as follows:
Rdg/Lit GOAL for WHITE students =45%
Rdg/Lit GOAL for BLACK students =76%
Math/Alg GOAL for WHITE students =46%
Math/Alg GOAL for BLACK Students =78%
Question: Why are the PPS Goals (in both Reading & Math) for White students 30+ points HIGHER than the Goals for Black students??
Available online at PDE under RFRM (Required Federal Reporting Measures)
The PDE report also shows the DISPARITY in Keystone Exams "PROFICIENCY" rates for WHITE & BLACK students in PPS High Schools:
Literature: White =81% and Black =47%
Algebra I: White =68% and Black =34%
Biology: White = 39% and Black = 8%
Just the FACTS in Black and White!
WHY? Why are Black students not being educated in PPS?
Someone needs to contact Rebecca Nuttall and recommend that she check out the Pennsylvania Department of Education's 1) "Required Reporting Measures" Report, 2) SPPs- School Performance Profiles, and 3) Priority and Focus Schools in PPS
OH MY! PPS did not even reach their own goals, low as the were, and even including CAPA, Sci-Tech and Allderdice in the DISTRICT averages!!!
How low are the low schools if these are DISTRICT averages???
What is going on? Something needs to be done! This is unreal! This is very bad for the whole city! No wonder Charter Schools are on the rise?
No wonder there is no progress for Black students in PPS. There are no goals by the district to make progress for Black students! This is outrageous and a few other expletives deleted.
PPS has so many schools in the lowest 10% of PA and you question why with all the financial backing of corporations...well all that financial backing is not in the classrooms where it is most needed. Instead, it is spent on people not working with children but coming and telling teachers how to do a better job, but only visit once in a blue moon and have no idea what goes on in the room on a daily basis.
Students needing special ed services, well that's a joke. Students get labeled, but one person is to help these kids out by only going in a room with 1 time a day to help 7-8 kids at a time. We need the pull-out model back. Students should not be excluded from activities, but if they can't learn on the academic level as their peers, then teach them at their level with pull out teachers.
Kids arrive at my door with no notice that they are enrolled and we wait and wait and wait for records.
When we "right-sized" the numbers were based on "square feet" of space-- NOT student management. All schools need behavioral specialists/ more developmental advisors-- just more people working in individual or small groups-- first on behavior issues-- then on academic.
Think about a situation where "sitting down" is the first goal--no they arent puppies and we arent trying to train them to sit-- but honestly - this shouldnt be a high school teacher's biggest concern.
It is hard to compare students who don't have that level of basic school skills with students from other districts.
Why do they NOT have the basic level of school skills?
You don't learn what to do in-school when you are out-of-school, right?
These results for PPS are an embarrassment!
Why does anyone in this city not rise up and clear a path to finding educators who know how to educate!
And, don't say there are none--that is simply not true!
I agree with you 100 percent. Unfortunately everything that you named is not among the priorities in our data collection. Some of the people in this blog want to know where the money is going to educate our children. As I see it the money is being used to show the right data numbers to the state. New buzz words and data. Political agendas provide a corporte mold that districts have to comply with. It has nothing to do with the students. On the front lines of the classroom there are many caring talented teachers who can't be corporate given the make up of the classroom. How can a school be evaluated by a system that doesn't take in to consideration of the student basic needs?
The data at capa will all ways be substantially higher than other schools in our district because of two things. First of all parents had to care enough to go through the process of getting them into the school, communicating with teachers, attending events and staying on top of the students progress.Many of the students in our district don't have that parent. Secondly, CAPA has the ability to kick kids out. If a child does not maintain behavior and academic requirements they are giving back to regular schools. The regular schools are filled with overcrowding, mental, socio economic and behavior problems that are not conducive to showing positive data or rating hi amongst schools. If our district follows that model for all schools we would be number one in the region but we'd only have two high schools full of students.
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