Edward J. Blotzer Is Presenting This Testimony Principal of The

Testimony presented before the Select Cornmi ttee Of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Resolution 495 Erie, PA August 3 I,2000 Edward J. Blotzer is presenting this testimony 1 would like to thank Representative Roherer for the opportunity to address this committee today on the PSSA test of assessment. I am currently the Associate Principal of the Wilkinsburg High School. Prior to that, I was a classroom teacher for the past thirty-one years. It is from that prospective that I wanted to address this issue. As a result of our students not doing well on this test alone, I am an Empowered Teacher that feels totally disemboweled. You have made this test the gold standard by which everyone is to be judged. Despite the fact that our students did not do well on this test, they are not failures and I will explain the reasons I believe the scoring was not indicative of the ability of the students we have attending our schoofs. Last year, our valedictorian received a scholarship to Duke University where she is now attending, majoring in premed. Our salutatorian is attending Northwestern University majoring in pre-law I communications. Many others are attending such schools as Kent State, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and other four year colleges. Many of the graduates from the last class are attending Allegheny County Community College both because of its tuition structure and the ability to transfer credits to four year colleges. Additionally, others are attending various proprietary schools First, this test, as you already know, has not been normed {standardized) through any national organization such as Princeton Educational Testing Service. For that reason alone, I often question whether this test is really testing what you want it to test - the material learned by the students in our public schools. The sheet 1 am referring to is from the Pennsylvania DPE and if this test is testing what you are requiring, I wuld like to give you an example, t was looking at the PDE document sent out about the standards [copies will be distributed] and one part of the math caught my eye. All students by grade eleven should be able to solve a quadratic equation both graphically and mathematically. If this test were in existence Wen 1 was in school, I'd still be in grade eleven! 1 have graduated from two different colleges (California University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost 1972). 1 have a M.Ed., and a principal certification from Duquesne's program (7974), and have been a teacher reviewer for a national textbook company (Glencoe McGraw Hill). I have been published many times in both the Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I have held two state-Wde offices representing the teachers in Allegheny County to the Pennsylvania State Education Association. I don't believe that 1 am a failure. 1 don't believe that anyone developing these tests or interpreted the results has read any of the studies about right-side/ lefl-side brain dominance or you would realize that some people, although intelligent, would never be capable of learning certain academic disciplines. The PSSA will always find these students in the lowest X of any standardized test. If they had, 1 believe that many of these requirements that supposedly are being tested would have been dropped. How many of you, sitting in this room, could pass this test now on quadratic equations; however. you expect every student in 1 1" grade in Pennsylvania to pass a test using this standard. The PSSA guarantees that there will always be a series of school districts on the Empowerment List because, like any scoring, someone will always be at the bottom. The students do not take the PSSA test thoughffully. Since the PSSA has no direct relationship currently in force that impacts on their grades or promotion to the next grade, they do not believe it to be relevant. The test is useless to the guidance personnei because the test comes back months after the students are in the next grade. I have had students make designs on the paper with the answers, connect the dots in a zigzag pattern, fill in all answers in two minutes and sleep the rest of the time, etc. They sirnpiy do not see it as beneficial. We as educators can encourage, cajole, plead, beg and everything else, but the students do not see the PSSA test as pertinent to them. These pencil and paper tests are dead issues to a visual student. Some districts have devised ways to make an irrelevant test relevant by offering prizes, gifts, parties, etc. The PSSA test itself is not a fair judge of the schools on the Empowerment List. We in Wilkinsburg have approximately at 50%+ transiency rate district wide on a yearly basis. The rate at the elementary school is even higher. This is true, to a greater or lesser degree, of all of the districts named in the Empowerment Act. This past summer I attended a workshop for all districts named, and on the bubble of being named, on the Empowerment Act. In one second-grade class in Wilkinsburg, two years ago, twenty-eight (28) students started the year with one teacher. At the end of that year there were still twenty-eight (28) students in the class but not one was from the original 281 With this in mind, remember that most of them essentially skipped second grade. In third grade, if we took, for example, a child reading at the 1.2 grade level and raised it to 2.5,that child is still below grade level in ability although we have significantly raised hisher reading level. This same logic applies to the grades taking the test. How can I, as an Empowered Teacher be totally responsible for this child's lack of progress? Many of our children change schools several times during their educational career. By some estimates I have read, for every change, the child falls behind six months. Often our schools are revolving doors. There is often a serious problem interesting parents in any standardized testing. They are often not interested in such things as parent I teacher conference days mere we can address their child's educational needs. Two years ago, w held our parent I teacher conference days over a two day period. The first day, all of the now Empowered Teachers were in the building during the regular school day. The second day, w were in the buildings from 1 :00P.M. until 9100 P.M., with the exception of a one-hour dinner break. During that period of time, we saw a total of seventeen (17) parents and parole officers. This is out of a total school population of approximately 650 children. Last year, under new leadership, we greatly improved. We had over 'I 00 parents / guardians I parole officers. Last year, to encourage attendance, we had dinner for parents and students showing. We also had door prizes and a raffle. Still, this is nothing like what is experienced in other districts. With little parental involvement, we are doing the best we can with the students we receive. It is discouraging at best, but the PSSA test does nothing to help or to test parental involvement. Additionally, the schools scoring poorly on the PSSA are districts that are in econornical/y disadvantaged communities. The state's own failure in the Clairton district is a prime example. When steel was king, so was Clairton. In the past, this schoof district was taken over three times by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for economic distressed status. Since the state has taken over, and they supposedly know how to make urban children learn, why then is this district still on the Empowerment List? Why are the children there not doing well on the PSSA, even though for several years, the district was under Commonwealth control? Another factor is that the results of the PSSA point to districts that have heavy populations of minority students. I was talking recently to some friends in Oakmont (Riverview School District) and mentioned that if, as a result of the poor showing on the PSSA, our district does not "comeup to par," we would be taken over and in two years the state could dissolve the district. I said that if that occurred, the students were not dissolved, and they would be sent to surrounding districts such as Penn Hills, Riverview, Fox Chapel, Gateway, Woodland Hills, and the City of Pittsburgh. A gentleman overheard me and questioned if that would really be a possibility - that these children would be coming to their community. 1 indicated that 1 saw no other possibility. He expressed concern that they would not be accepted into those districts. He stated that they, our students, would not be welcomed into those districts, and because other districts did not want our problems. This is the same problem with the voucher issue. Yes, vouchers could be given to go to another public school. However, at the NAACP Education Conference in Homewood two years ago, Ms. Melissa Hart was asked by an elderly gentleman if his grandchildren were put on a bus with, voucher in hand, would they be accepted in the Fox Chapel School District or any other district. Her reply was, "Yes, if there was room af the receiving school." Everyone in the audience laughed, knowing full well what that meant - the doors would be closed to those minority children. I ask the ~e~reseniativesof the House here present if that was the design of using the PSSA tests to dissolve these districts and send them to districts that are working better? Remember, there is an axiom in negotiations that says, " Be careful what you wish for, for you may get it." How will the House of Representatives solve this problem? Do you really, really want to take over the Philadelphia City Schools or these other districts? Might it be more expeditious and cost efficient to help, economically, those communities and school districts having difficulty getting their students to pass the PSSA? Currently the Commonwealth's share of public education funding is at approximately 36%.

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