Jim Thorpe doing better than state test scores show
While Jim Thorpe Area School District’s School Performance Profile scores may have fallen shy of the desired mark, Superintendent Brian Gasper assured the school board that things are looking up.
During Monday’s meeting, Gasper held a presentation on the SPP scores, which serve as a statewide benchmark for accountability among public schools, for the board.
“As you saw in the papers, the School Performance Profiles did come out in October for all of the school districts,” Gasper said. “As I’ve told you in the past, I’ve advocated against the School Performance Profile. It is not a very good assessment system for school districts. It really isn’t. It does not give you a full view of what is going on in the school districts.”
Gasper told the board that by the end of his presentation, they would perfectly understand why this year would mark the end of School Performance Profiles.
While the high school’s building academic score jumped a bit, 69.1 percent as opposed to 2015-2016’s 67.6 percent, it comes nowhere near 2014-2015’s 76 percent, or 2013-2014’s high mark of 88.2 percent.
L.B. Morris jumped from 2015-2016’s 61.1 percent to 74.5 percent, whereas Penn-Kidder Campus dropped slightly from 69.6 percent to 67.9 percent.
Gasper emphasized that while these numbers may appear concerning, the real problem lies with the evaluation itself.
“All of these teachers that teach these students, whether they’re the reading teachers, math teachers, science, biology, if they’re one of the teachers that administers one of the state tests, we’re able to see the growth of their students,” he said. “I am happy to tell you that all but two absolutely showed growth for 2017. Students, on an average, have all grown, though the SPP has not necessarily shown that.”
Future Ready PA Index
Three years ago, Gasper began advocating to change the School Performance Profile, spending some time with a head policymaker at the state’s Department of Education.
After conducting 30 feedback sessions with 1,000 stakeholders, the Department of Education opted for some revisions to the old SPPs. Those changes will take effect next fall with the Future Ready PA Index.
“They’ve decided that it is a flawed system, and they’ve taken some of the items on there and they’re enhancing them,” Gasper said. “This (Future Ready PA Index) is a more holistic view of our schools, rather than the SPP.”
Gasper said that the new program is being piloted throughout the year, with plans to implement it completely next year. A score index will not be available until 2019.
While the Future Ready PA Index will retain many of the measures found in the current profiles, changes will include measuring English language acquisition among ESL students, incentivizing career awareness instruction beginning at the elementary school level, addressing the unequal weighting of content areas in the SPP, and increasing the weighting of course offerings like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, along with dual enrollment.
District plans
According to Gasper, the district is already in the midst of some changes that should help bolster scores on evaluations.
“Our plan that we have in place is to ensure our students get the best education that they possibly can, and that we’re giving them those 21st century skills in order to be technologically savvy, and also so they’ll be good employees down the road,” Gasper said.
Initiatives for the high school include the continuation of Project OLE, which focuses on online learning platforms, a concentration on writing across the curriculum, promoting more academic growth for all students, distributing Keystone courses more evenly among content area teachers, placing more focus on PSATs, continuing summer school programs, infusing more Project Lead the Way courses in science and math classes, and a transition to a fusion schedule.
“It’s a big change for the high school, and it’s working out very well to allow larger blocks for the instruction, getting into deeper thinking for the curriculum,” Gasper said of the schedule change.
As for L.B. Morris and Penn-Kidder, plans include a continued focus on writing and incorporating novels into the curriculum for grades four through six, implementing the second year of the Journeys Reading Series for the K-3 classes, continuing the Envision Math program in grades three through five, engaging in the third year of the Big Ideas math series, realigning teaching strategies to promote growth in reading and math as measured by the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System, using benchmarking tests to identify student strengths and growth areas, pushing for Project Lead the Way Launch, and more.
Board President Dr. Michael Principe took a moment to open up the panel for commentary from each school principal.
“I know we started benchmarking Algebra I students last month, to find their deficits, and then we’re addressing those deficits in math classes, and with tutoring. We want to get those numbers up as high as we can, and there is always going to be that group of students that need the extra help,” high school Principal Thomas Lesisko said.
Other concerns included helping students transferring from other districts catch up to the level of current students.
“We are finding success with a lot of the kids who have been here for a long time. We just want to say, as a board, and I know I speak for everybody, if you have specific things you want to work on, we want to help you fund those kids,” Principe said.
With the implementation of new education strategies, and the improvement of the testing protocol,
“At the end of the day, I wanted you to see this. It’s a flawed program, the state is weaning their way out of it, and we’re moving into something else,” Gasper said. “SPP, as I’ve informed you in the past, it’s really only one measure. It tells us that when our kids take the state test, they’re not necessarily doing as well. But, our students, in other ways, are doing very, very well. We’re holding high expectations for our students.”
