PA. SCHOOLS There is too much riding on state tests, parties say

The tests determine if schools make progress in meeting new mandates.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Representatives of a variety of education interest groups offered a common refrain during a legislative committee hearing Tuesday on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests: Schools shouldn't be judged by those tests alone.
"The assessment cannot be a single exam that samples curriculum," said Leonard Ference, principal of Mechanicsburg Middle School in Cumberland County and executive director of the Pennsylvania Middle School Association. "In order to avoid being coerced or pressured into transforming their instruction into 'test prep' curricula, educators must be trusted to design [a testing system] that contains highly reliable and valid multiple measures."
Talk about concerns
Ference and others representing school districts, teachers and parents discussed with the Senate Education Committee their concerns about the PSSA, which has become the primary measure of whether Pennsylvania's 501 school districts are meeting the academic expectations of both the state and federal governments.
The tests are used to determine whether schools are making sufficient progress toward meeting new federal mandates to improve math and reading test scores. Reading and math tests are given in grades three, five, eight and 11; a separate writing test is administered in grades six, nine and 11.
The PSSA was first introduced in the early 1990s and became mandatory in 1995, during the first year of then-Gov. Tom Ridge's administration. The tests became the focus of Ridge education policies that allowed high-achieving districts to reap financial rewards through "performance incentive" grants, and forced struggling districts to shape up under threat of a government takeover.
Now, all states are laboring to boost their scores under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, which requires all pupils to be proficient or better on standardized math and reading tests by 2014.
Tough for teachers
Given the breadth of academic standards set by the state, the task can be daunting for teachers, said Carla Claycomb, a senior specialist with the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
"Our state standards are, to borrow a phrase, a mile wide and an inch deep. To teachers, they look more like an exhaustive laundry list of skills than a systemic vision for building deep student learning," Claycomb said.
Caroline Allen, who handles legislation and advocacy for the Pennsylvania PTA, said other factors, such as teacher competency, class size, and parental involvement, are also important in determining whether pupils are receiving an adequate education.
The State Board of Education, which established the PSSA scoring system, has commissioned an independent study due in May to determine whether the tests reliably measure pupils' academic performance.
"To suggest we can't improve would be wrong," State Board Chairman Karl Girton told the committee. Although Girton said the tests are not intended to diagnose pupils' specific academic problems, the committee's chairman, Sen. James Rhoades, said a more specific analysis would be a good idea, considering that lawmakers have agreed to spend millions of dollars on programs designed to help schools improve their test scores.