Pennsylvania's Graduate Competency Assessements

Today I was doing some more research into the Pennsylvania Department of Education's attempt to implement the Graduate Competency Assessments throughout the state. You may remember a while back that Mt Lebanon School District passed a resolution opposing the GCAs. Today I came across the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit White Paper on Graduate Competency Assessment.

Here is a little demographic information on the county. Montgomery County borders Philadelphia County. It is a commuting suburb for Philly and parts of New Jersey. It ranks as the third most populous county in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties. According to Wikipedia, Montgomery County ranks as the 44th wealthiest county in all of the United States.

It was with great interest that I read the white paper. Please take a few minutes to review the document. It outlines very clearly the many problems GCAs will present. It also outlines very clearly that the problems the PDE is trying to solve do not get addressed properly with the GCAs.

You can find the online version of the white paper here. Below is an excerpt:

A substantial body of research makes clear that GCA’s are an inadequate prescription for concerns about curricular rigor, relevance or equity.

“The perception that our education tests are precise because they yield numerical scores is fundamentally mistaken.” (James Popham, Educational Leadership, December 2007). The research and literature is rife with evidence that high stake tests should never be the sole determinant when making important decisions about students.

It's good to see other organizations out there standing up for what is right. Please contact State Representative Matt Smith and State Senator John Pippy to voice concerns about the GCA's moving forward.

Thanks for reading.

James