Alyssa Cwanger
	Pittsburgh Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. Graphic: Future test scores / Ambitious goals

Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt yesterday put his reputation on the line, setting a 2009 deadline for ambitious improvements in test scores and charting a course for narrowing the racial achievement gap.

Mr. Roosevelt said his plan, called "Excellence for All," would exceed federal and state performance requirements. It would push good students to be better, he said, and help low performers catch up.

"This is about moving all students forward, at all levels, all the time," he said at a news conference attended by civic leaders.

While test scores have increased in recent years, the district still is missing state and federal benchmarks. Moreover, performance of black students in reading and math lags that of white students in every grade level counted by the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.

Without change, Mr. Roosevelt said, the district's performance will worsen because of ever-higher PSSA benchmarks. "The work we have in front of us is urgent," he said.

Under Mr. Roosevelt's plan, the end of the 2008-09 school year is the deadline for:

Increasing from 46 to 71 the percentage of fifth-graders who score proficient or advanced on the state reading exam, and from 56 to 71 the percentage who score proficient or advanced on the math exam.

Increasing from 49 to 69 the percentage of eighth-graders who score proficient or advanced on the state reading test, and from 46 to 66 percent the percentage who score proficient or advanced in math.

Increasing from 51 to 66 the percentage of 11th-graders who score proficient or advanced on the state reading test, and from 38 to 58 the percentage who score proficient or advanced on the math test.

Increasing the percentage of students who score in the exams' top tier and cutting the percentage who score in the bottom tier.

For example, he wants to increase from 13 to 25 the percentage of fifth-graders who score advanced in reading, while decreasing from 32 to 17 the percentage who score "below basic."

This year, the state expects 54 percent of students to score proficient or advanced in reading and 45 percent to score proficient or advanced in math. By the 2008-09 school year, the benchmarks jump to 63 and 56, respectively.

Mr. Roosevelt's plan exceeds those standards. Moreover, the federal and state governments do not require districts to increase the percentage of top-scoring students or decrease the percentage of lowest-scoring students.

But Mr. Roosevelt said he wants to set high expectations for all students. That means pressing good students to do better. It also means giving the district an incentive to work with the poorest-performing students, not merely those who are slightly behind and might be nudged to proficiency to help the district meet performance standards.

Supporters called the goals ambitious but achievable.

"This is right up my alley," school board member Daniel Romaniello Sr. said. "If you don't expect a lot of things, you're not going to get a lot of things."

John Tarka, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said his members will help Mr. Roosevelt meet the goals.

Mr. Roosevelt also wants to reduce the racial achievement gap which exists in reading and math in fifth, eighth and 11th grades. For example, about 38 percent of white fifth-graders and 65 percent of black fifth-graders missed the proficiency mark on the state reading exam last year.

So Mr. Roosevelt yesterday set an extra-high bar for minority students. He wants the test scores of minority students to increase at a rate 5 percentage points higher than those of white students, so that the races' proficiency levels will converge in 10 to 15 years.

"It would be the most rapid diminishment of this disparity of any district," Mr. Roosevelt said.

Mr. Roosevelt's other goals include increasing the graduation rate, the percentage of high school seniors who take the SAT college entrance exam, scores on Advanced Placement tests and the number of minority students in AP and International Baccalaureate courses.

To meet his performance goals, Mr. Roosevelt has put his faith in a package of academic-improvement initiatives he's been rolling out since November. They include creation of new schools called accelerated learning academies, a new curriculum, better professional development for teachers, a "leadership academy" for principals and development of a districtwide can-do culture.

Mr. Roosevelt said he expects to see significant progress by the end of the 2007-08 school year, when his contract expires. He said he expects the public and school board to evaluate him on that progress.

Mr. Romaniello said some board members asked Mr. Roosevelt whether he had set the goals too high, setting himself up for failure.

"He said he was here to achieve these goals and he's going to work as diligently as he can. ... We can't argue with that."