HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania System of State Assessments and Keystone Exams will be administered this year but state education department officials say they are looking to allow schools to delay them to as late as September.
In a draft letter to the U.S Department of Education that is open for public comment, state Acting Education Secretary Noe Ortega indicated the idea behind extending the testing window to the fall, when schools are expecting to offer in-person instruction five days a week, is that it will ensure a larger number of students will take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments and Keystone Exams.
That was a concern that superintendents raised about the state exams given the large percentage of students who are choosing a virtual school option.
State Deputy Education Secretary Matt Stem said at a Tuesday House Education Committee hearing that extending the testing window will allow districts to administer the exams in the summer or in September “but do so without forcing teachers and educators into buildings where they may still be in remote learning.”
Mr. Stem told the committee more guidance to schools about administration of the state exams, which are federally mandated, would be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance to states advising them that it did not intend to waive the testing mandate but suggested state education officials consider shortening the state exams, offering remote administration where feasible and/or extending the testing window.
While the extension of the testing window is appreciated, the president of Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union said the union is disappointed the federal department has chosen not to suspend the testing mandate for a second consecutive year due to COVID-19.
“Our students have already lost too much classroom instructional time,” said Pennsylvania State Education Association President Rich Askey in a statement. “While we clearly prefer a federal waiver of annual assessments just as the U.S. Department of Education offered last year, PSEA welcomes the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s plan to provide school districts with needed time and flexibility to address the logistics of annual standardized testing during the pandemic.”
He said that will allow educators and students more time this spring to focus on teaching and learning instead of losing time to testing.
Mr. Stem told the committee the department also is likely going to apply for waivers to the 95% test participation requirement and certain accountability measures that the federal department is allowing to be suspended.
On Wednesday, the chairs of Pennsylvania’s state Senate Education Committee asked the Biden administration to waive this year’s requirement for school standardized testing.
Sens. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny, and Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, wrote in a letter that they understood the need to find out how much learning and what kind of learning children missed during the pandemic.
But students also need “some sense of stability before we thrust additional stress on them in the name of determining what schools ‘deserve’ more funding,” they wrote to President Joe Biden and Acting Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
First Published: February 25, 2021, 6:25 p.m.
