report card overview

Seventy-two percent of Pennsylvania public schools last year attained what the state Department of Education considers an acceptable score based on a number of indicators, according to the state's school report card issued on Thursday. (File photo/Pennlive)

(Dan Gleiter, PennLive.com, file)

From a quick glance at the 2013-14 report card on Pennsylvania's public schools, it appears little has changed from the previous year.

Seventy-two percent attained an overall academic score of 70 or better on a 100-point scale, which is the same percentage from the year before.

But a deeper dive into the scores released publicly Thursday for the state's nearly 3,000 public schools shows a disturbing setback.

More schools saw their score decline last year from the prior year. Specifically, 1,539 schools experienced a drop in their score and 1,405 either improved or stayed the same.

The following graphic shows the distribution of scores for every school in the state by 10-point intervals for 2012-13 and 2013-14. The longer the bar, the more schools scored in that range.

Still, Acting Education Secretary Carolyn Dumaresq finds this year's School Performance Profiles — the state's name for the school report cards — to be satisfying, considering all the changes that schools are instituting in adapting to revised academic standards and assessments.

"I am pleased that our students and educators continue to meet the challenge of more rigorous academic programs, and I congratulate them for a job well done," she stated in a news release.

State Education Department spokesman Tim Eller said Dumaresq has indicated that scores fluctuations are expected during this transition period, as schools realign their curriculum and educational program to the new standards. Plus, he highlighted that the number of schools scoring below 60 declined by 1 percent.

The school profiles provide a wealth of data for parents and taxpayers to use to gauge the performance of their local schools and provide a trend line to show year-to-year change. It includes an academic score based on a number of indicators that go beyond just standardized test scores and student's academic growth.

It also is used to meet the federal government's school accountability requirements, and this year, for the first time, a school's score will be used as a component in its teacher evaluations.

School report card 2014: Dauphin County

School report card 2014: Cumberland County

School report card 2014: Lancaster County

School report card 2014: Berks County

School report card 2014: Adams County

School report card 2014: Franklin County

School report card 2014: Lebanon County

Despite Dumaresq's satisfaction with the results, Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-Chester County, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee, saw the lack of improvement in scores to reflect what he sees as a poor record on education by now-lame-duck Gov. Tom Corbett's administration.

"If the department is saying, well, it's not unchanged. That's not a viable argument. If the program is working, they should show us exactly example after example of improvement in the scores. Their answer should be much better," he said.

He also finds the school profiles' release just 48 hours after the gubernatorial election to indicate that politics played a role in the timing. Last week, the department indicated the profiles would come out in mid-November — at the earliest.

"Clearly, the administration was continuing to try to hide its dismal and embarrassing record on education," he stated in a news release.

Education Department spokesman Eller denied the election had anything to do with the timing. The release was made as soon as the department had determined the information in the profiles was accurate.

"Accuracy was and remains the sole reason for why the department provided schools with additional time to review and verify their data," Eller said. "There are nearly 120,000 teachers across the commonwealth whose evaluations will be impacted by this year's School Performance Profiles. Accuracy is of paramount importance to the department."

The release of the school profiles drew a variety of reactions from various interest groups.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association voiced concern about the results' heavy reliance on standardized test scores, which spokesman David Broderic called, "just a blurry snapshot of a student's performance and don't provide a clear picture. There's a lot that needs to be improved in this system, and we're hoping to engage those questions when the Legislature returns to session next year."

Further, the union also questions points to an evaluation of the profiles done by Penn State's Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis that finds them to be an ineffective tool for measuring school performance.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association dove into the scores to determine that traditional public schools averaged scores of 76.9 points, while brick-and-mortar charter schools averaged 65.1 points and cyber charter schools, 48.9 points.

"While there is room for improvement for all schools, it is clear charter schools, especially cyber charter schools, need to be held to the same accountability standards as traditional public schools so all students receive a quality education," the association's executive director Nathan Mains said.

While Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools' Robert Fayfich agrees that all schools have room for improvement, the executive director said he puts little stock in statewide averages of charter schools when comparing them with statewide scores of traditional public schools. He said the fairer comparison entails looking at the scores of schools that feed students to the charter school.

When looking at it that way for the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh charter schools, he found that a number of the charter schools outperformed the city schools.

Susan Spicka, a co-founder of the public education activist group, Education Matters in the Cumberland Valley, said as a parent, she thinks schools are spending too much time testing students.

"There are so many schools that don't have the resources that they need to provide students with the opportunities they need to meet the standards," she said. "The state should do something constructive with these scores ... use them to help kids and not just to make schools do more testing and punish schools that do poorly."

Staff writer Nick Malawskey contributed to this article.

