By Jeff Hellrung, Director, Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of Education
Jeff Hellrung
When you send your children to school, don’t you want to know that they can perform to clear and reasonable standards that will give them foundational skills for eventual readiness for college or careers? We have those standards in our public schools. They are the PA Academic Standards. We also have valid and reliable assessments to determine whether or not students have mastered the standards. These are our PSSA tests which are given in grades 3-8 in language arts and math and in grades 4 and 8 in science.
These assessments are invaluable both to students and to their teachers and school district administrators. They give critical feedback on student learning and progress. Teachers and administrators can use those test results to develop strategies to help students who are lagging in specific areas and we can also identify and correct any gaps in instructional programs. Isn’t this just common sense? Doesn’t any profession that wants to succeed and be taken seriously need to adopt and adhere to an appropriate set of standards?
So why are is there such a fuss about our state standards and testing? There is a lot of misinformation from the extreme right and the extreme left who have their own agendas to promote. Also, too many public school superintendents are howling that excessive high stakes testing is unfair and overly stressful to children. Delivering these assessments once per year for six years is not excessive. Neither does taking those assessments have to be stressful to children, unless the adults responsible for their education make it stressful for them.
Too many of our school district superintendents have resisted the accountability that comes with our PA Academic Standards and our PSSA testing. To their credit, our past and current Unionville-Chadds Ford Superintendents and teachers have embraced our state standards and accepted accountability for the performance of our students. They have used the PSSA results to address the particular needs of each student. They have ensured that our students are prepared for but not overstressed taking those tests.
Parents, don’t fall for the smokescreens. Our state educational standards and testing are challenging but reasonable. They are readily accessible at the Pa Dept of Education website. Read them for yourself. The standards are not about “rote learning”. They are about reading and writing skills, understanding math and science, critical thinking, and problem solving. They do not require “teaching to the test”. They should be embedded in school curriculum. They do not require excessive test preparation. Districts that spend large amounts of time on test preparation should scale back. The formula for success in our public schools is straightforward. Excellent curriculum plus great teaching equals student achievement. Success on PSSA testing is a byproduct.
I don’t claim that success in PSSA testing is the only measure of success for our schools or even that it is the most important. What is most important is helping students become capable and resilient adults and well rounded citizens who will be prepared to lead meaningful and productive lives. Academic standards and assessment are only a part of what we do in our schools but they are an important and foundational part. Parents, insist on accountability from your school districts and your children.
Support our PA Academic Standards and PSSA assessments. Keep calm and carry on.
It almost sounds like a huge publishing company like Pearson or McGraw Hill paid you or gave your or your school some sort of incentive for penning this op-ed.
Using terms like “smokescreen” and claiming that only the far left and far right have issues with high-stakes testing is incendiary and incorrect. When you observe the stress that a third-grader feels leading up to PSSA testing, you don’t have to be a liberal or conservative zealot to see that high stakes testing have unintended consequences. In fact, a study in 2013 claimed that the huge rush to “accountability” and “measurement” mandated by No Child Left Behind has had no impact on test scores.