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Thursday, September 19, 2002

By Jane Elizabeth, Post-Gazette Education Writer

HARRISBURG -- Parents who wonder exactly how much their children are learning in school from one year to the next would get a clearer picture under a proposal that will be considered this morning by the Pennsylvania Board of Education.

A board committee adopted a resolution yesterday that outlines how the state will comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- including how the state will use test scores from now on.

Under its guidelines, which are expected to be approved by the full board today, student test scores would be tracked individually, each year. Under the so-called "value-added" system of scoring, parents will be able to tell how much their child's score increased or decreased over the previous year's score.

In other words, a child's scores will be measured by his or her own previous scores, not some average school or district score.

The state's No Child Left Behind Committee also had to devise a plan for testing all children in every grade, every year. All schools already are required to administer the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, which will be given in grades 3, 5, 8 and 11 in the spring.

The federal government now wants children tested yearly, and many states don't do that.

Critics of the federal law have been concerned that state education departments would impose new statewide tests on local school districts, but in Pennsylvania, that apparently won't happen.

Fran Warkomski, who headed the state's No Child Left Behind Committee, said districts should be allowed to use tests of their own choice. In many Pennsylvania schools, those tests include standardized national tests.

The cornerstone of the federal act is the requirement that all children score in the "proficient" range on math and reading tests, no matter which tests they use, by 2014. School districts must show "adequate yearly progress" or risk being put on the feds' failing school list.

Each state can come up with its own definition of "adequate prog-ress." Warkomski, who also is the director of the state Bureau of Special Education, said that in Pennsylvania, schools must show about a 4 percent increase or better each year in math and reading scores. In addition, progress will be measured by improvements in graduation rates.

Warkomski said the committee met with parents, teachers, union representatives, administrators, business people and community members before coming up with the recommendations.

However, the Pennsylvania State Education Association will challenge the proposal at today's meeting, according to PSEA president Patsy Tallarico.

The teachers union has been critical of the state's "proficiency" level on PSSA tests, saying it has been set unrealistically high to trigger state takeover of failing schools, Tallarico said in a press release yesterday.

Jane Elizabeth can be reached at jelizabeth@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1510.