Fewer Schools in Pa Make Grade in Annual Testing

By Dan Hardy, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Aug. 29–More students in Pennsylvania are meeting state benchmarks but fewer schools are making the mark, according to rest results released today by the state’s Department of Education.

Schools are increasingly finding it difficult to meet standards because the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that they be graded on the performance of all students and on groups of students such as poor, minority and special education.

The number of schools making Adequate Yearly Progress — the state-set benchmark for success, fell by almost five percent, figures from the education department show. Last year, 82.4 percent of the state’s 3,121 schools met the mark; this year, 77.5 percent met the standard.

Students overall showed progress.

Last year, 67.7 percent of Pennsylvania students scored proficient or above — the passing grades — in math; this year, 69.2 percent met the standard. In reading, last year, 66.8 percent scored proficient or above; this year, the number was 67.7 percent.

The reason for the decline in the number of schools meeting Adequate Yearly Progress, state education secretary Gerald Zahorchak said in a news conference today is that more grades were tested this year — fourth, sixth and seventh grades were added.

That meant that in many more schools, there were more subgroups of students who also had to make the grade. In order for a subgroup to be counted, a school needs to have at least 40 students in that group– minorities, limited-English students, economically disadvantaged children and special education students.

The percentage of Pennsylvania schools with more than 40 tested special education students, for example, tripled, from 14.5 percent to 43.5 percent. In most schools, the subgroups perform worse than the overall student population on the test.

The test results are based on the state’s Pennsylvania System of School Assessment which was given in all 501 school districts last spring.

The state says that for a school to be considered passing, 45 percent of students must score proficient or above in math and 54 percent proficient or above in reading. That applies to all students and to the subgroups.

This year, grades three through eight and the 11th grade were tested.

This is the fifth year of tests since the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. The law, which is up for reauthorization this year, requires that 100 percent of all students perform at grade level on state tests by 2014.

Results are available on the education department website: www.pde.state.pa.us and at www.paayp.com

Contact staff writer Dan Hardy at 610-701-7638 or dhardy@phillynews.com

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