More than half the schools in the Pottstown tri-county area saw their state profile scores decline over the past year, according to sister paper The Mercury’s analysis of results recently released by the state.
Only one district – Pottsgrove – saw more schools’ scores increase than decline.
From a percentage standpoint, Pottstown’s Lincoln Elementary School saw the greatest year-over-year improvement (28.08 percent) and Franklin Elementary School, also in the Pottstown School District, saw the greatest year-over-year decline (17.27 percent).
The Boyertown Area School District’s Gilbertsville Elementary School and Spring-Ford’s Seventh Grade Center tied as the highest scoring schools in the region with a 97.9 score.
The scores are from the Pennsylvania School Performance Profiles, the commonwealth’s year-old school assessment system which replaced the Annual Yearly Progress standards set up under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
More Complete LookUnlike its predecessor, which was based largely on a single test cycle, the school profile system takes a wider variety of factors into account when putting together a school score, giving as much credit to academic progress as to achievement.
That makes it easier for educators to pinpoint the area in which a problem may be occurring, according to Tim Eller, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
“The AYP system was just a snapshot in time, based on one state assessment and that determined a school’s score,” said Eller.
“The profile is a much more complete overview of a school’s performance; it looks at progress, academic performance, attendance rates, SATs and more,” said Eller. “It provides a more rich way to look at everything a school is doing.”
Eller explained that 40 percent of a school’s score is based on academic achievement, such as test scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), which are being phased out, and the newer Keystone Exams, which are being phased in.
Each year, a new Keystone is phased in, and this year, Eller said, the addition of science testing may have shifted some school scores around given that the previous PSSA-based system only measured math and reading.
“Science is not something we’ve seen high scores with, historically, at the state level,” Eller said.
Growth MattersAnother 40 percent of a school’s score is its measure of growth, or “the school’s impact on the academic progress of groups of students from year to year.”
As an example of how much weight “growth” carries in these scores, consider a comparison between two schools – one in Pottstown and one in Spring City – both of which had the dubious distinction of being the lowest scoring in their district last year.
This year, Lincoln Elementary School’s score of 89.4 almost matches the score of another school which also experienced a big increase in its score – Spring City Elementary School, which had a score of 89.6
But actual academic scores at Lincoln in math, reading and science are between five and 10 points lower than Spring City’s.
However, Lincoln’s “growth” scores in those subjects – the gap between the two years’ scores – were 10 to 15 points higher than Spring City’s.
Other factors in school performance profiles include graduation rates, attendance rates and the success of “historically under-performing students,” usually those from low-income families or those for whom English is a second language.
That is one area where Owen J. Roberts intends to put more focus, said Superintendent Michael Christian.
As might be expected for a district recently ranked 24th best in the state by Niche.com, the school profile numbers had good news for OJR.
Christian said high points district-wide include:
– 90 percent of OJR students in grades 3-8 scored in the “Advanced” or “Proficient” range on the PSSA in mathematics (72 percent were “Advanced”).
– 84 percent of all students in grades 3-8 scored “Advanced” or “Proficient” on the PSSA in reading.
– 89 percent of all 4th and 8th graders scored “Advanced” or “Proficient” in science testing.
– 80 percent of OJR High School students who took the Biology Keystone exam were “Advanced” or “Proficient.”
But not everything was roses and puppies.
There is currently no new score posted for Owen J. Roberts Middle School, Christian confirmed, because the score the state had originally posted had errors.
“We had 150 students whose academic growth data was not adequately reported and the PDE is addressing that,” he said.
Perk Valley Sees a DipA year after having six of its seven schools score above a 90, only Perkiomen Valley School District’s high school and Evergreen Elementary School maintained a rating above 90.
The high school was the only school in the district to show an increase in score, going from 95.8 to 97.4, making it the top-rated high school in The Mercury’s coverage area.
On the other hand, Schwenksville Elementary School showed the sharpest decline in the area, falling from 93.4 to 78.6, a 15.84 percent drop, according to state numbers.
Eller said with the changes and evolution to the School Performance Profile’s make-up, increases and drops are to be expected.
“We expect some fluctuations for the first few years,” he said.
He said the education department feels districts need not be too concerned about drop-offs unless they get into double digits.
“Double-digit shifts are likely a sign of the program in a school building not being aligned with the state standards,” Eller said.
Three out of seven Perkiomen Valley schools have such shifts, the most of any district in the area.
“Certainly we’re trying to figure out some theories of why that may be,” said Perkiomen Valley Assistant Superintendent Barbara Russell. “We’re just trying to raise questions about what happened and figure out why it happened.”
She said factors such as changes in what is being tested are being examined as possible factors.
“That is something we’re thinking about, but one could say it’s a level playing field,” Russell said of the changing and, by most accounts, more difficult tests. “All schools are facing that.”
The only Perkiomen Valley school which didn’t achieve a score above 90 last year was South Elementary School. It was identified as an area which would need focus.
Although its score dropped, it only declined from 81.8 to 80.5, and Russell said it was encouraging to see that the school was stabilizing.
Russell said “change in education is slow” and with many initiatives taking multiple years to implement properly, it can be frustrating.
“I think we have to be patient,” she said. “And the needs change; we need to recognize that.”
Not Apples to ApplesBoyertown Area Schools Superintendent Richard Faidley, who expressed pride in Gilbertville Elementary School’s scores being highest in the area and credited the staff there for the achievement, agreed with Russell.
He said it’s important, when comparing this year’s scores with last year’s, to remember “it’s not an apples to apples comparison.”
“Pennsylvania System of School Assessments (PSSA) in reading and math has changed over the past two years and PDE anticipates a change again this year,” Faidley wrote in an e-mail to The Mercury.
While the assessments two years ago were based solely on the state’s academic standards, the most recent assessments eliminated some items that were tested the year before and added new ones, more closely associated with the Common Core.
“The change last year was described as a bridge between the PA Academic Standards and the PA Core. We are currently preparing for yet another change in which the PSSA will now focus solely on the PA Core,” Faidley wrote.
“It is important to realize these changes when comparing scores from one year to the next due to the fact that the assessments are not the same and hence are not measuring the same content knowledge,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, “it’s certainly an improvement over AYP, giving us the opportunity to look at a growth model. But I wouldn’t say it’s perfect.”
Teacher Evaluations Tied to Scores
The Pennsylvania State Education Association would certainly agree with that, said spokesman Wythe Keever.
“If the best thing we can say about the school performance profiles is that they’re better than AYP, that’s not saying much,” said Keever.
The PSEA, which provided some suggestions for the new School Profile System, is particularly concerned about the fact that 15 percent of individual teacher evaluations will be tied to the score of the teacher’s school.
“Our concern is, like we felt about AYP, that 90 percent of academic progress is measured using standardized tests,” said Keever. “And standardized tests tend to reflect factors over which teachers have little control.”
By that, Keever meant things like poverty, school readiness and the level of parents’ education.
He referred to a brief by Ed Fuller, executive director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis at PennState, which concludes that “the SPP scores are more accurate at identifying the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at a school than at identifying the effectiveness of a school.”
Keever pointed to further problems – including that the profile scores are too late and, like the case of Owen J. Roberts Middle School, too inaccurate – to make them useful either as teaching tools or a way to assess teacher effectiveness.
Consider further, said Keever, that teachers of art, music or library science, will have 15 percent of their performance measured by tests that do not even address the subjects they teach.
“There’s no PSSA for art or music,” said Keever, “but evaluations of those teachers will be based on math and science testing.”
Eller defended the decision to tie teacher (and principal) assessments to building scores by noting the state wanted a way to motivate teachers to have a stake in their school’s success.
He noted that 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation is based on their own work, and 35 percent of that half is based on the achievements of the students they personally teach.
Charter ComparisonFor their part, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association used the most recent release of profile scores as a way to hammer home their argument that charter schools, particularly cyber-charter schools, need to be held to the same accountability standard as traditional public schools.
“Traditional public schools continued to outperform their charter and cyber charter counterparts,” read a statement from PSBA, released after the profile scores had been made public.
“Based on a scale of 100, the average SPP score for traditional public schools was 76.9, brick and mortar charter schools was 65.1 and cyber charters was 48.9,” the organization wrote.
Noting that a score of 70 or higher is considered “a sign of moving toward success,” PSBA noted that “it is clear charter schools, especially cyber charter schools, need to be held to the same accountability standards as traditional public schools so all students receive a quality education. In the new legislative session, PSBA hopes that charter school reform will be considered.”
But while that may be true statewide, it should be noted that the region’s local charter school, Renaissance Academy, saw its score grow by more than 5 percent over the previous year, to reach 92.5.
