Pennsylvania Applying for Differentiated Accountability?

I spoke with a source at the Pennsylvania Department of Education about the possibility of Pennsylvania applying for Director Spellings' pilot program of Differentiated Accountability. The source said that it appeared that Pennsylvania had eligibility, but "they" still were not sure if they were going to apply for the pilot program. The program only will accept ten states which makes it competitive, and there was only a short time until the suggested application due date of May 2, 2008. After the May deadline, there may be a press release regarding the decision. Since the source considers bloggers to have "reporter status", that was the only information that I could obtain. I guess we will have to wait and see!
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Subjectivity in PSSA Scoring

The Technical Report for the PSSA for 2007 is on the PA Department of Education website. This report is compiled by DRC to explain the PSSA test development and implementation process for a given year. After reviewing some items from the Technical Report for the PSSA 2007, I am still upset that the open ended questions have a large degree of subjectivity involved in the grading process. As previously stated in an earlier blog, 10% of the tests are subject to a review by more than one "scorer" to determine if there is accuracy between the grade given by one scorer on an open ended question as opposed to the grade another scorer would give the same question. According to the Technical Report 2007 pg 51, two different scorers have only a 70 to 80 percent chance of giving the same score to the same Reading question. In other words, if two educated and trained professionals read the same answer, the two of them are only 70-80 percent likely to give the same score. Many times the readers will give adjacent scores, (adjacent scores are scores that are beside each other, i.e. a score of 2 versus 3). Of course, that would happen when the answer can only receive a score of zero to 3. (Three is the total points allowable for a Reading open ended question. Math open ended questions can receive scores of zero to four points.) To the state's credit, the Math open ended answers have a higher percentage of scoring accuracy. Perhaps the scores are higher because Math is a more cut and dry subject than is Reading. Then again, perhaps the scorers were just tired the day they reviewed Reading. Maybe even as tired as the child who wrote the answer...
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Researching Differentiated Accountability

I just want everyone to know that I am researching whether or not Pennsylvania will be applying for Director Spellings pilot program of Differentiated Accountability. Basically, Differentiated Accountability will allow schools who do not make their AYP numbers to show why they are not making the numbers and follow up with interventions that are appropriate to the reasons. This makes sense in theory as some schools have a large proportion of their student population identified as needing improvement and others are not making AYP goals because of a small subgroup of students that may be having trouble reaching the targeted goal. In each of these cases, the changes that would need to be made would be quite different As far as I have read, only 10 states will be accepted into the program. Two calls to the Pa Dept of Education have not been returned...
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PSSA Is Finally Over!

Yeah! My son finished his PSSA test and I feel like dancing! I am not sure how he did on the test. The teacher said that he really did not feel like working on it the first day and was rather lethargic about the whole thing. The second and third day went a little better particularly in the Math portion of the test.



He is very glad to be finished with the PSSA prep booklets and vocabulary. In his words, "We get to go back to our regular (textbooks) books now." He is sooo right. Putting off learning the "normal" curriculum to make time for the PSSA prep should not occur. After all, if the students are learning what they are supposed to learn, why do we need the PSSA prep?



I know, I know...too much at stake, too many students needs the drills to "pass". etc. However, if we just drill the PSSA test for six weeks, the results the PSSA gives are actually distorted. It is really just cramming. There are no follow up tests to see if the student retains this information.
What a sham! I am glad it is over for this year anyway!
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