May 27, 2003 By April Straughters 4 min read

BROWNSVILLE – The Brownsville Area School District is adding a class to its curriculum to prepare students for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests. Sixty-five of 106 seniors initially failed the test their junior year and 17 of those are currently scrambling to pass the district’s equivalence test, which is a retest required of those who failed the PSSAs.

High school Principal Rick Gates said that he only found out in March of this year, after this year’s seniors had already taken their PSSA test, that the state requires seniors pass an assessment test equivalent to the PSSAs in order to graduate.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has required that seniors be proficient in reading, writing and mathematics in order to graduate. They have given districts the choice to use the PSSA test to measure the students’ proficiency or a district equivalence test.

A release alerting districts of the state requirement found on PDE’s Web site, listed under assessments and graduation requirements, is dated Nov. 1, 2002.

In Brownsville students are required to pass the PSSAs their junior year or take a retest during their senior year. Gates said students who score on the “basic level” or below are required to take a retest until they pass in order to graduate.

He said students and teachers, who are now tutoring the students who have yet to pass the retest, are working very hard, to ensure graduation.

He said the district is doing everything they can, including adding a class to the curriculum for those who score low on the PSSAs, to avoid a situation like this in the future.

“Next year, we’re implementing a reading class to help kids who fail the PSSA,” Gates said.

According to Gates, the class will be available to those in ninth thru 12th grades.

“I want them ready when they take this test,” he said. “It’s a difficult test with a lot of difficult questions and they have to learn how to answer those questions.”

Gates said the class is primarily a reading class, but he said it will also help students with writing and also with math.

Gates said that a higher percentage of students have not passed the mathematics portion of the test, but he said a fair share have not passed the reading and writing as well.

“It’s the reading part of the math (word problems) that they are having problems with and that will be reviewed in the classes too,” Gates said.

Gates said that he believes that many of the students failed the test because they did not take the test seriously.

At a recent Tri-State School Study Council meeting, where “hundreds” of districts in the state were represented, Gates said that PSSA performance was a topic of discussion. He said many of the districts in attendance admitted that a high number of their seniors did not pass the PSSAs.

“There were a hundred different districts and in about half of those schools, I’d say maybe half of their kids didn’t pass the PSSA,” he said.

Gates said many of the administrators at that gathering also believed students did not perform well on the test because they did not take the test seriously.

“The test never meant anything to these kids until this year. They didn’t get a grade on it. Nothing was taken away if they failed and now all of a sudden you have to pass the test to graduate. We have told the kids that the tests count (toward graduation), now the kids next year will realize they need to take the test seriously,” Gates said.

Gates said he believes another reason students do not fare well on the test is because they are not familiar with the types of questions asked.

“Students nowadays don’t know how to do the type of problems on the tests. There are a lot of word problems and the books we’re using aren’t geared that way,” Gates said.

“I really think it is the way they ask the questions,” he said. “The questions are asked differently, so teachers have to gear their tests according to the way they are asked on the PSSA. We need more statement type, more thinking problems.”

Gates said he believes the Brownsville Area School District is one of the only districts taking the issue of PSSAs head on.

He said that there has been so much confusion among administrators in districts across the state about what the PDE expects from the districts.

“I’ve talked to other districts. I think we’re one of the few strictly following (the state) guidelines. Some districts just don’t know what to do,” Gates said.