from the BCCT:
Districts learn of progress, setbacks
By: JOAN HELLYER
Bucks County Courier Times
All eight school districts in Lower Bucks County earned Adequate Yearly Progress designations on the 2009 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, but several schools had some deficiencies, state education department officials reported Thursday.
The PSSA mathematics and reading exams are administered each spring to students in third through eighth grades and 11th grade to determine if they're achieving AYP as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
A district achieves AYP when at least one of the three grade spans identified by the education department meets specified performance and participation targets. The grade spans are third through fifth grades, sixth through eighth grades, and ninth through 12th grades.
The exams show if students are performing at grade level. Schools and districts must demonstrate increasing levels of proficiency between now and 2014, when all students will be expected to perform at grade level, state education department officials said.
This year, to achieve AYP, at least 63 percent of a district or school's students needed to score in the proficient or advanced range on the PSSA reading tests to show they're learning at or above grade level. The proficiency threshold is 56 percent for the math tests.
Several area districts, including Bristol, Bristol Township, Centennial and School Lane Charter School in Bensalem and Bucks County Montessori Charter School in Falls reached by having at least one grade level improve its proficiency rate on one or both of the tests by at least 10 percentage points.
Overall, the proficiency rate for Bristol Township's fifth-grade students on the PSSA reading test was 18 percentage points higher than the 2008 rate. In addition, the third grade class at the district's Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School demonstrated 100 percent proficiency on the PSSA math test.
The Neshaminy School District rejoined the ranks of those school systems to earn AYP status in 2009 after being put on Warning status from the state because of its students' performance on the 2008 PSSA tests.
"We look forward to the challenges in front of us and hope to do as well next year," Neshaminy Superintendent Lou Muenker said Thursday.
Even though the district earned AYP status, Neshaminy High School is in Corrective Action II 3rd Year status because not enough special education students demonstrated proficiency in math and reading.
The high schools in the Bensalem, Centennial, Council Rock and Morrisville school districts also were put in Warning status or landed in Corrective Action Status after their special education students didn't demonstrate proficiency in at least one of the exams.
Also in Bensalem, the district's middle schools were put on Warning status because of their special education students' performance on the PSSA math test. Plus, Samuel K. Faust and Benjamin Rush elementary schools are in School Improvement I status because of their special education students' performance on the tests.
Centennial's William Tennent High School, along with Pennsbury High School, landed in Corrective Action II 2nd Year status because not enough of their economically disadvantaged students demonstrated proficiency on one or both of the tests. In addition, Harry S Truman High School in Bristol Township and Bensalem High School didn't make AYP because not enough black students at those schools demonstrated proficiency.
Bucks County Technical High School also landed in corrective status because of its overall student performance.
Statewide 78 percent of all schools achieved AYP status, said Gov. Ed Rendell in Harrisburg Thursday, up from 72 percent in 2008.
Rendell, locked in a 2009 budget impasse with Republican lawmakers, said the progress made on the PSSA tests show the state needs to continue to increasing its education funding, and not depend on federal stimulus funds. The federal dollars will disappear in 2010, leaving the state with a $1 billion revenue gap for its education funding, he said.
Districts' reaction AX
School-by-school breakdown A6
Want to know more?
Go to www.pde.state.pa.us/a_and_t/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=150034 for more information about the 2009 PSSA results and Adequate Yearly Progress status for local schools and school districts.
