Jan 2, 2007 By Joyce Koballa 6 min read

Special education students across the state’s 501 school districts may soon benefit from modifications to the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test to be handed down by the federal government this month. The move is backed by the state’s Department of Education, which has pushed to revise the PSSA for special education students since President Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into law in 2002.

Special education supervisors in Fayette, Greene and Washington county school districts view the change as positive with some noting it should have been implemented sooner.

While the specifics of the test are still being discussed, Anne Peters, special education supervisor at Frazier, said the revisions could result in a new version or possibly one based on the students’ instructional levels outlined in their Individual Educational Plans. “Either way, it’s long overdue,” said Peters.

In accordance with NCLB, special education students with severe disabilities in the state’s school districts currently take the Pennsylvania Alternate System of Assessment (PASA) test intended for those who are unable to participate meaningfully in the PSSA even with accommodations.

However, the remaining special education students, referred to as “gap kids,” are still required to take the PSSA and pass it at the same rate as regular education students.

“We’re always going to have children with severe cognitive disabilities, but we need to reach down and get the kids in the middle,” said Peters.

According to the Education Department, the PSSA is used to measure student success and is primarily responsible for determining if a school has made “adequate yearly progress” to avoid be taken over by the state.

Like the PSSA, the PASA is designed to take a snapshot of the student’s typical performance on a small sample of academic skills that comply with state standards.

Gerald Zahorchak, Pennsylvania Education Secretary, said currently all but 1 percent of students in third through eighth grades and 11th grade are required to take the math, reading and writing portions of the PSSA despite their abilities.

This year, Zahorchak reported that about 139,000 students in special education across the state took the PSSA out of roughly 950,000 students who took the test with the one percent representing those who took the PASA.

But, for the “gap kids” the PSSA has been nothing more than frustrating, according to school officials.

Tammy Mandich, special education supervisor at Central Greene School District, said while NCLB has good intentions of wanting all children to succeed and to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, it’s not realistic.

“You have kids with various levels of abilities and we’re asking kids that are functioning two or three grade levels below to take a grade level test…we’ve had kids that even broke down and cried,” said Mandich.

In addition, the PSSA can be stressful and upsetting to children who perform one or more grades below their actual grade level.

Annette Conti, special education supervisor at Uniontown Area School District, said the expectations of having special education students test at their grade level does not give an accurate measure of their progress.

Conti added that some emotional support students become so overwhelmed by the test that they shut down and don’t even try which in turn, accounts for invalid scores that are still counted by the state.

Like the PSSA, the PASA consists of a series of on demand performance items that require the use of reading and math skills.

It is administered in the spring and given by videotape or narrative notes and evaluated based on the student’s accuracy of responding and level of independence while teams of teachers, administrators and/or college university faculty are trained to score students’ performance.

One of those people is Mary Jane Glitz, a retired support teacher from Intermediate Unit 1, who works under Dr. Naomi Zigmond, director of the PASA at the University of Pittsburgh.

Glitz became involved with the PASA project in spring 2001 when it was first administered and has since served as part of a team of educators from the IU that train local school administrators and teachers how to give the test.

Glitz said the test is scored in June at the state’s annual scoring conference.

“Regionally, the scoring conference shows the different needs of our students, how we are meeting state standards and hopefully introducing a wide variety of curriculum changes to expose our students in a meaningful way to those standards,” said Glitz.

In addition to local educators, Glitz also presents the PASA to parent support groups and graduate and undergraduate students at local colleges and universities.

As a former speech therapist in the local schools, Glitz said she was amazed at how the PASA opened avenues for even the most fragile students providing a “snapshot” of what they could do based on their individual needs.

“I believe the PASA continues to be an ethical tool to meet the requirement of NCLB,” said Glitz.

The majority of local special education supervisors recalled having studied under Zigmond in college when modifications to the PSSA were discussed then.

“We need to come up with an assessment to show what those gap kids can do,” said Mandich.

With the new PSSA revisions Zahorchak projected about 18 percent of all special education students would take the new version of the test.

According to Mandich, four percent of Central Greene’s students enrolled in special education took the PASA in 2005 while 22 percent took the PSSA out of the district’s 2,162 students.

Ira Chrise, special education supervisor at Connellsville, said the modification is important in the sense that no child should be left behind.

“Where they (NCLB) skipped a beat was a test based on lining up the kid’s ability and achievement,” said Chrise.

Chrise added that seven percent of the district’s special education students took the PASA while 19 percent or 1,062 of them took the PSSA out of the district’s overall population of 5,641 and 7 percent took the PASA.

At Frazier, Peters said three students took the PASA while167 special education students took the PSSA out of the district’s enrollment of 1,172.

Since this was the first year the Central Greene implemented a full inclusion class in all core academic areas in grades six and nine, Mandich said she wouldn’t have conclusive data to compare for 2006 until the sixth graders take the PSSA in the spring.

Uniontown reportedly had 564 special education students take the PSSA out of 3,552 students and 26 with severe learning disabilities take the PASA with the exception of sixth grade also.

“Looking at the needs of each student is required for a child to learn…finding the tools to document the exact need and then facilitate that learning is a monumental task,” said Glitz, adding that it can be accomplished.