Study: Few Pa. graduation tests for state standards

Only 18 school districts in Pennsylvania have documented that they have local tests and procedures to ensure all their high school seniors meet required state standards before graduation, a Pennsylvania State University study released yesterday said.

The $276,000 study by education professors Rayne Sperling and Jonna Kulikowich did not name the districts involved; the researchers had promised anonymity to get them to take part. They received 418 responses out of the 501 districts.

The report was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as part of its campaign to institute a set of state tests that some students would have to take to graduate high school.

The graduation test proposal is unpopular with school boards and state legislators, so the department has released several studies in recent months that it says show that the current system does not prepare students adequately for work and college.

The latest study results, state education secretary Gerald Zahorchak said yesterday, show that "now again we have the evidence that so many of our schools are not there" when it comes to making sure students have mastered required material.

To meet the state requirement for high school graduation, Pennsylvania students must score proficient or higher on the 11th-grade PSSA, the state's No Child Left Behind Accountability test, or get at least a "proficient" grade on locally designed school district assessments that are supposed to be aligned to state standards.

In 2007, about 56,000 high school juniors did not pass the PSSA and graduated the next year because they were judged proficient on local assessments.

The Penn State study looked at the local assessments to see whether they met state academic standards. The study also looked at whether districts were using proper procedures in making up and giving the tests or making sure that all seniors met state standards before graduating. Only 18 school districts got the highest score on all counts.

Some districts responded that despite state regulations saying all students who did not pass the PSSA must pass a local assessment, they did not have such an assessment, the study said. Others said they had local assessments but did not use them to determine who should graduate.

Some said that they used measures such as attendance or good citizenship to determine whether a student should graduate. And some used scores on unrelated subjects such as science, English, or American government to determine math or reading proficiency, or did not show that their assessments set clear standards for proficiency.

Officials at the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, while acknowledging that the study showed weaknesses in local graduation assessments, pointed out that 369 of the 418 responding districts had math assessments that mostly or completely matched state academic standards.

More than half of the districts, 237 of 418, had reading tests that mostly or entirely matched the standards.

What led to the low number of districts showing that all graduates met state standards was mainly their failure to demonstrate that they were using the assessments properly.

"Most districts are using valid tests," school boards association spokesman Timothy Allwein said. "They just need some help on how they are using the results of the test - how that is used to determine students' proficiency."