Acting Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq Thursday announced the results of the 2013-14 School Performance Profile that show 72 percent of public school buildings earning a score of 70 or higher.
Local school districts seemed to have fared well or exhibited improvement, as at least one area school superintendent confirmed on Friday.
Compared to the 2012-13 profile, the percentage of schools with a 70 or higher has held steady at 72 percent.
“These results show that, compared to 2012-13, the majority of our public schools are performing well even though the state has recently revised its academic standards and is transitioning to more rigorous assessments,” Dumaresq said. “I am pleased that our students and educators continue to meet the challenge of more rigorous academic programs, and I congratulate them for a job well done.”
Kane Area School District Superintendent Maryann Anderson told The Era she is “very pleased” with the scores and the method of assessment.
“We have shown a good increase in our elementary schools,” Anderson said, explaining scores increased from 69 to 76, “which is really very good.”
She said there was a modest increase in Kane’s middle school scores, which went up from 81 to 82.4, and there was a modest decrease in the high school’s score from 71 to 70.
“We were most pleased with elementary scores. That’s a big increase,” Anderson said. “We put a lot of work into looking at the data and targeting students and giving them very specific interventions.
“The students are achieving well,” she added, noting that she attributes the improvement at least partially to the half-hour longer school day students had in the 2012-2013 school year.
Anderson said the school day decreased back to it’s previous duration due to public pressure. “The community felt the increase in the day was not necessary, but now we’re looking at the data and I personally think the time was used appropriately to help the kids,” she said. “We’ll see what happens in the future.”
Anderson also said she believes the performance profile is an accurate barometer of student’s academic growth and understanding — not merely an assessment of their test-taking ability.
“We like the fact that the SPP measures more than one score,” she said. “It has a lot of data points and it speaks to the growth that the students are making from year to year and closing the achievement gap between students.
“I think we’re showing growth,” Anderson continued. “They include all the factors that are necessary to encourage academic performance from attendance rates, the types of courses offered to students, how students are growing in each subject area, etc.”
Last year’s PSSA was based on the state’s legacy standards and was designed to measure student performance to those standards, the current year assessments will be based on the new, more rigorous standards set forth by PDE, according to Bradford Area School District Superintendent Katy Pude.
“Our buildings are currently examining the data and individual student scores to determine how best to alter our instructional practices in order to make students successful on the new assessments,” Pude said.
Bradford Area High School received a score of 84.3; Floyd C. Fretz Middle School received a score of 71.5; School Street Elementary School received a score of 71.8; and George G. Blaisdell Elementary School received a score of 87.6.
Otto-Eldred Junior-Senior High School received a score of 73.7 and Otto-Eldred Elementary School received a score of 84.3.
Smethport Area Elementary School received a score of 69.6 and Smethport Area Junior-Senior High School received a score of 79.1.
Port Allegany Elementary School received a score of 64.1 and Port Allegany Junior-Senior High School received a score of 79.7.
Released in fall 2013, the School Performance Profile provides the public with detailed information of the academic performance of public schools; satisfies requirements of Pennsylvania’s approved federal No Child Left Behind waiver; and is one component the state’s new educator evaluation system.
In addition to www.paschoolperformance.org, the School Performance Profile can also be accessed by visiting the department’s website atwww.education.state.pa.us and clicking on the “PA School Performance Profile” graphic.
Other local district superintendents could not be reached on Friday.
