In a presentation of PSSA scores at the Phoenixville Area School Board meeting on Thursday, August 14, district supervisor of mathematics and assessment coordinator Carolyn Marchetti explained the newly-released 2007-2008 PSSA scores for the Phoenixville Area School District. The PSSA, or Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test, is a standardized measure of learning to help level the academic playing field at K-12 schools across the Commonwealth. In 2002, in cooperation with the No Child Left Behind
|
|
Overall, the Phoenixville Area School District achieved their AYP goals of 56 percent "proficient" in math and 63 percent "proficient" in reading, along with every other school district in Chester Country except for Downingtown Area School District, who now has three schools on warning. In many cases at PASD, Reading and Math scores rose significantly since last year's assessment, especially for black 3rd- through 5th-graders, whose proficiency in math increased by 14 percent and in reading by 11 percent, and for Phoenixville Area High School, whose 11th-graders (now this year's rising seniors) increased their math scores for economically disadvantaged students by 13 percent, black students by 16 percent and for special education students by 25 percent, a phenomenal jump according to the new assistant superintendent, Dr. Maryjane Richmond.
"Our students for the most part did very well," Richmond said, noting that every school in the district met AYP for the year except for Phoenixville Area Middle School. When it comes to pinpointing students who may need extra help, Richmond said that the subgroup data has been revealing.
The middle school is officially on warning because two of its subgroups did not achieve AYP: black and special education students in grades 6-8. Additionally, scores dropped for economically disadvantaged students in the same grade band. However, the negative score jumps that most concerned school board members occured for the classes of 2012, 2013 and 2014 during their transitions from from 5th to 6th grades and from 7th to 8th grades. One of the most severe drops occurred among special education students in the class of 2013, who decreased from 60 percent proficient in math in 5th grade to 32 percent proficient in 6th grade — a drop of 28 percentage points.
Educators' theories range on why these decreases happened. Assistant Superintendent Richmond thinks that one component may be that the AYP score for the district was raised from 45 percent proficient last year to 56 percent this year, meaning more students had to achieve high scores this year in order for each subgroup to pass. "So, the bar was raised beyond the percentage of students who are proficient," Richmond explained. According to Principal Czukoski, the lowered scores correspond to a decrease in instructional time, especially in math. During the jump from elementary to middle school, students receive 31 minutes less instruction in math per day, according to Czukoski , which he thinks makes a difference as the subject matter gets more complex. "Learning is compressed. For struggling learners, that is in issue," he said. He added that leaps to higher-level thinking — negotiating abstract relationships and computing math problems with more steps — is a big leap that makes the tests much harder than students found them in previous grades.
Czukoski hopes that new remedial programs will help combat these issues.
"One of our challenges was certainly the reduction in instructional time." In order to conserve resources, teachers at the middle school reconfigured their schedules so that they could teach remedial classes in reading and math at the end of the day three days per week. "Now we've put something in place that costs the district no extra money and allowed teachers to reallocate some of their time," Czukoski said.
Other programs include RECAP, an 11th-period class where non-proficient students can seek additional tutoring as well as help with organizational skills and note-taking; Study Island, a computer program that provides mini-PSSA tests for students with special tests for problem areas; and Response to Intervention, which "forces you to map out your entire program" to figure out what you need to academically, socially and emotionally support your students, according to Czukoski. Many of these programs are modeled after the next steps that the PDE will take if the middle school does not improve its scores. "Despite the phenomenal overall success for our 8th-graders, we need to take a more critical look at the groups who are suffering," Czukoski said.
"We have improved scores in writing and reading, but our subgroups aren't doing as well," he added. "We have to figure out ways to remediate them very, very quickly. It's going to take a little concerted effort to get them up to speed. Programs are important and instruction is vitally important, but equally important are the connections that teachers make with their students." Czukoski points out that students need to be ready and receptive to learning or effort on the part of the teachers will not make a difference. "Remedial programs are challenging because you are targeting specific skills, but it's hard to make that kind of learning come to life and be exciting," he said. Nevertheless, he expects these programs, as well as one called RECAP, to vastly improve scores next spring. If the middle school continues to miss AYP, in two years they will move to Corrective Action 1, a more intensive phase where the Pennsylvania Department of Education will force many of the same measures on the school, but in a more regimented and scrutinizing way. At no point will the school lose funding due to sub-par PSSA scores; however, a series of "school improvement" and "corrective action" measures would bring teaching more fully into the hands of the state.
Czukoski doesn't think that will happen. "I believe in our teachers, our administrators, and our students," he said. Next year, he anticipates seeing all subgroups improve, not only on paper but also in the classroom.
