From the PSBA website:
After all the research and data questioning the use of high stakes exams to determine the graduation readiness of students, the PSBA seems to have switched course here and now believes it is OK to use the PSSA, IB, or AP exams to do just that- as long as the option for local assessments is maintained. The PSBA says the new agreement is optional to local school districts. However, read on from the same press release (emphasis below is mine):Tim Allwein, PSBA Governmental & Member Relations
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association today announced agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the State Board of Education over the issue of graduation requirements. The agreement on new language proposed by the parties is an attempt to reach consensus on what has been a divisive issue within the basic education community for almost two years. The plan replaces a controversial proposal for graduation competency assessments and preserves broad local testing authority.
Under the new proposal, the state tests, known now as Keystone Exams, would be strictly optional for all school districts. Districts would be required to use only one of the following as graduation requirements: the results of the 11th-grade Pennsylvania System of State Assessment test, the Keystone Exams, aligned local assessments or International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement tests. Consequently, the only mandated assessments would be the PSSA, because it is the designated state assessment for No Child Left Behind Act purposes, and the graduation requirement the school district chooses.
The new language also ensures that a local assessment option is still available for school district use and makes major changes regarding the development and implementation of those tests.Those paragraphs don't make keeping your local assessments as they are "optional". Instead it sounds like more intrusion into the rights of local governments. Even if you are proven to have satisfactory graduation assessments, your school district will still need to get validated at a cost that will be split between local taxpayers and the State. Your graduation requirements will be subject to approval by this Local Assessment Validation Committee- or more likely, they will have to conform to the standards set by this committee.For the first time, the Department of Education would have to provide technical guidance in the development of local assessments to any school district that requests it. Also, local assessments would have to be validated but, unlike the GCA proposal that places the entire cost on school boards, this agreement provides that validation costs will be shared equally by PDE and districts. Also, local assessments would be allowed to include various strategies, such as portfolios, student work, teacher-developed tests and other alternatives, as well as pencil-and-paper standardized tests.
The new proposal also creates a Local Assessment Validation Committee, with representation from the state and from PSBA for the purposes of determining the process and criteria for validation of local assessments and for determining the qualifications for approved validation entities.
I have been keeping up to date on the PSBA on what they have been saying for the past year on the GCA's. Here are some quotes from them over the past year:
PSBA Comments on Regulations to 22 PA Chapter 4:Here is a second nugget:
PSBA believes that proponents of the proposal assert that change is needed because the current graduation assessments being used by school districts lack rigor and do not adequately measure a student’s proficiency in the state’s academic standards. PSBA strongly refutes this assertion, because there is nothing to prove its validity and because results from a PSBA survey on such assessments show that school districts are indeed following the intent of the current regulations in a variety of ways.
Additionally, PSBA believes that the GCA proposal infringes on areas that traditionally have been areas of local control, will be harmful to students and will result in significant costs to school districts and the commonwealth.
Tim Allwein- Are graduation competency assessments necessary?In unity with he PSBA, school districts across this state passed resolutions opposing high school exit exams. Mt Lebanon passed its resolution in February 2008. You can see that document here.
Both the proponents and opponents of the current GCA proposal are united in their desire for a system that ensures that students graduate from high school proficient in Pennsylvania’s academic standards. Proponents believe that the only way to ensure this is through state tests – either the PSSA or the GCAs. Opponents, including PSBA, believe that a system that allows local tests aligned to the state academic standards and the PSSA can meet this requirement. PSBA is not convinced that the discrepancies shown by the proponents that more students are graduating without scoring proficient on the PSSA point to a deficiency in local assessments.
Personally, I am opposed to the agreement based on the following:
1) Costs, while shared between the PDE and the District, are unknown. Additionally, if you are in a school district that by all accounts is graduating college ready students, then why incur the cost at all?
2) Pencil and paper tests should never be the determining factor in a student's readiness. While Mt Lebanon may "opt out" of the optional Keystone Exams, the fact remains that many school districts will take this route. The PSBA and others have cited numerous research articles that suggest high-stakes exams are not the way to go to determine college readiness.
3) The new agreement still infringes on local control of education even if a school district wants to opt of the Keystone Exams. This agreement makes it more likely that in the future the PDE will infringe further into graduation requirements and force local school districts to cede more control to the State.
Finally, I did send an email to the PSBA outlining my concerns. For some balance to my viewpoint, I present their response below:
Thank you for your comments. Your specific concern has been echoed by others. As you know, this whole debate began with GCA supporters saying that new tests were needed because too many students graduated based on reaching proficiency on local assessments rather than on the PSSA. This argument made the underlying assumption that local assessments were somehow substandard, an argument that PSBA refuted because there had been no studies or research proving this. It is also important to remember that PDE had never been required to give school districts any technical advice or guidance on the issue of developing local assessments.
The recent Penn State study found that while many school districts have local assessments that are aligned to the state's academic standards, which is what the regulations require, many do not use those assessments or the results of those assessments in a manner that is acceptable to PDE.
Under the language of the new proposal, districts can either use the new Keystone Exams or a validated local assessment as a graduation test. Since validation of local assessments would be required, subject to criteria developed in part by PDE and by representatives of PSBA, it would be difficult for the state to then go back in a few years and say that the local assessments can no longer be used and that only a state test (PSSA or keystone exams) can be used. I'm not sure what their argument would be.
The cost of validation is also a subject of much discussion, as it should be. There are several reasons that I believe will ensure that these costs are not burdensome on school districts. First, the new language requires the state to pay half the costs. Second, the criteria would be developed by a committee on which PSBA has four representatives and the state four. Third, the recent Penn State study recognized that there are 18 school districts that have valid local assessments. I believe that PDE will share best practices and any other useful information with school districts around the state in order to help them develop valid local assessments. Finally, PDE would be required to provide technical guidance to any school district that requests it in developing local assessments. If school districts can submit a test that they believe is valid based on using information shared by PDE, it likely will shorten the time needed for validation and thus, make it less expensive.
I appreciate your concerns about the nature of the agreement, but I believe the new language makes it more difficult for the state to turn around in the future and mandate the use of a state test for graduation purposes.
I welcome further comments.
Tim Allwein
Assistant Executive Director for Governmental and Member Relations Pennsylvania School Boards Association P.O. Box 2042 Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
(717) 506-2450, Ext. 3325
Cell: (717) 574-3005
Fax: (717) 506-2476
e-mail: tim.allwein@psba.org
Thanks for reading.
James
