Report charts some progress in district schools
Though progress has been made, nearly one-third of the region’s fifth-graders are still failing to meet state standards in math, reading or both, according to the second annual report from the Allegheny Conference on Community Development released Thursday. The cnference released its second “report card,” which is based on the number of fifth-grade students who are considered proficient or above in the state’s standards for reading and mathematics. Letter grades are given to each elementary school based on the percentage of proficient students.
Sixty-two out of 365 schools received an A in both reading and math in 2004, up from 32 last year, according to the report.
The report also states that more than 40 percent of the elementary schools in the region received a D or worse in either reading or math.
“We can’t prosper as a regional if a third of our future workforce can’t read or do math,” said Murry Gerber, chairman of the Conference’s Education Goal Committee. “Though we are making progress toward our goal of proficiency for all children, every parent and citizen needs to demand that their schools and school leadership make it the top priority to achieve proficiency.”
Letter grades were based on the percentages of students who scored as “proficient” or “advanced” on the PSSA.
An A was given to schools where at least 80 percent of fifth-graders scored as proficient or advanced, a B was given for 70 to 79.9 percent, C for 60 to 69.9 percent, D for 50 to 59.9 percent, E for 40 to 49.9 percent and an F was given to schools where 39.9 percent or fewer of the fifth-graders scored as proficient or advanced.
Six schools in Fayette County were given an A in both reading and math, while three schools were given a B in both subjects and nine other schools received a B in either reading or math. At the opposite end of the spectrum, an E was given to three elementary schools in reading and another two schools in math. An F was given to one school in reading and another school in math, according to the report.
Under the 2004 requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Pennsylvania Department of Education listed schools as making “adequate yearly progress” if 45 percent of students taking the PSSA are proficient or above in reading and if 35 percent of students are proficient or above in math.
This school year, the progress targets increased to 45 percent of students at or above proficient in math and 54 percent of students at or above proficient in reading. The percentages will gradually increase until 2014, when 100 percent of students are expected to be at or above proficient in both areas.
In 2000, conference members established a goal for the region that all 10-year-olds should be proficient in reading, writing and mathematics by 2010.
The Pennsylvania Economy League/Western Division prepared the report card at the request of the Conference to annually measure the region’s progress by compiling and analyzing the 2004 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) data on the 365 public schools that educate fifth-graders in the region, which includes Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
This year, the report includes the percentage of fifth-grade students in each school that come from low-income families and the percentage of students with disabilities.
The Conference also unveiled a new Web site, www.schoolgrades.info, that includes information on factors that impact school performance, shows how proficiency levels have changed over the past four years, how proficiency levels differ among schools with similar numbers of children from low-income families, how proficiency levels differ among schools with similar numbers of children with disabilities, and how proficiency levels differ among schools with similar amounts of spending.
“One of our goals with this annual report is to help parents and citizens understand how the schools in their community are performing in comparison to others in the region, and the extent to which specific factors may be affecting the performance of their schools,” Gerber said.
“We urge parents and citizens to use these tools to help them advocate with their school boards for better school performance.”
The complete report is also available online at www.schoolgrades.info