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The Measure of Proficiency:
Kim Geyer, Mars School Director, 451 Denny Road, Valencia,
PA 16059, 724.625.3532
Date: September 2002
Re: Measures Defining Proficiency
September 19, 2002 The Pennsylvania State
Board of Education decided to keep the definition of “proficiency”
as is stated in the current Chapter 4 Education Regulations
as defined as “Satisfactory academic performance indicating
a solid understanding and adequate display of the skills included
in Pennsylvania’s academic standards”. While it
is nationally recognized that the ultimate goal of No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is “all”
students reach 100% proficiency by the year 2014, as measured
by performance on state tests, along the way the interim progress
known as adequate yearly progress must be demonstrated and
measured as well by schools, districts, and states as defined
by NCLB.
Familiar to many aspects of
NCLB,
there appears to be no common understanding of what the word
“proficient” is and depending upon “who”
you are and “where” you sit in the educational/political
process, policymakers across the state, as well as, states
themselves, provide differing opinions and perspectives. The
Bush Administration and U.S. Department of Education officials
state that “proficiency” means students are on
“grade level”. However, many national researchers
suggest that the proficiency goals of NCLB
and how progress in meeting those goals is measured have nothing
to do with grade level achievement. States measure proficiency
by administering different tests with different content standards
and different cut scores, all the more complicated than simply
determining if students are at grade level. The meaning of
proficient even varies across the grades in the same subject
in the same state. Each state has its own expectations and
its own means of testing, making it tough to get an accurate
picture of how the nation’s schools as a whole is performing.
Disparity in accountability exisist among states because the
measured progress and indicators of Adequate Yearly Progress
varies among states.
Levels of proficiency are defined
in Pennsylvania through Chapter 4 requiring student results
of the PSSA tests to be categorized under levels called advanced,
proficient, basic, and below basic. The PDE also determined
and defined what those levels mean in relation to student
performance and in addition, established cut scores for each
of the three disciplines under the PSSA which are reading,
math, and writing.
The definitions of proficiency
and cut scores process has been a controversial subject of
concern in determining a number of factors influencing high
stakes implications since the Ridge Administration decided
to institute them as a means to the process. PA State has
chosen to tie the PSSA to the whole gamete of rewards, sanctions,
and restructuring of public school education, as we currently
know it. Through the past eight years, the Ridge-Schweiker
Administration has been successful either through regulations
or enacted legislation, such as the Education Empowerment
Act of 1999 to allow the literal state takeover of
Pennsylvania’s schools based on the flawed and dubious
PSSA state assessment.
These implications range from
the awarding of certificates in achievement to students based
on their PSSA results, to requirements of remediation, to
performance incentive funding, to “empowerment status”,
providing school choice, to the ultimate state takeover of
schools themselves. PSSA scores are reported in a variety
of means through a variety of means, including state school
report cards. Interpretation and perceptions of schools and
student achievement are based on those PSSA scores which vary
from year to year within the current structure of the PSSA
system....this was done through the Education Empowerment
Act several years before the implementation of the NCLB
Act of 2001. Now, with the implementation of NCLB,
the process leading to the restructuring of Pennsylvania’s
schools has been greatly exaggerated.
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