Legal Reasons for PSSA

My son is a special needs students who receives Learning Support. However, during the PSSA prep period, students who have no disabilities and do not qualify for Learning Support are pulled out of the regular classroom and taken to the Learning Support room where they are tutored so that they can possibly score in the proficient range on the PSSA. Who suffers? My kid, of course, since he is not given the attention from the Learning Support teacher that he is entitled by law. Why on earth is the school on the fringe of the law as it tries to get the borderline kids to score proficiently on the test? Click on Read More for the infomation on the leal reasoning for the PSSA test. Use the Bibliography page for the sources.

The PSSA is required in Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). Though the PSSA has been given in Pennsylvania since 1999, the federal law that mandates testing in each state is the No Child Left Behind Act.

The goals in Pennsylvania are aligned with the No Child Left Behind Act. Schools are required by law to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) towards indicators of performance. Indicators include proficiency in reading and mathematics, test participation, improvement in student attendance in Kindergarten through 8th grade, and improvement in the four year graduation rate for secondary schools. Schools are required to meet preset proficiency goals for Reading and Mathematics. Progress in percentages must be made in each subject toward the goals every 2 years and then every year until the year 2014 when every student tested must be proficient in both math and reading. In other words, a 100 percent proficiency rate is expected. (Can anything ever be 100 percent certain?) Pennsylvania uses the PSSA to meet the requirements of this NCLB.
Schools are intent on moving toward this goal because there are consequences to the district if the yearly goal is not met. The first year the school does not meet the goals, a warning is given. School choice must be offered, assistance teams are used, and a plan for improvement must be formulated. In the second year showing no improvement, there is more of the same with a few more supplemental services. The third year of no improvement brings even more of the same, but there must be changes in leadership, curriculum, professional development or other strategies. The fourth year of no improvement leads to big changes such as chartering or privatization. (Bureau of Assessment and Accountability March 2007) Because of these “punishments” each school district has incentive to make sure their students make AYP. (Now we know why the schools spend exclusive time learning nothing else but how to take the PSSA. The students and the curriculum suffer as teachers resort to teaching to the test.)