COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIO IN RE: HOUSE RESOLUTION 495, PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEM OF SCHOOL ASSESSMENT THE BEHREND COLLEGE, PENN STATE ERIE REED UNION BUILDING, ROOM 114 5091 STATION ROAD ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2000, 9:04 A.M. BEFORE: HON. SAMUEL E. ROHRER, CHAIRMAN HON. DARYL D. METCALFE HON. PHYLLIS MUNDY HON. SARA G. STEELMAN HON. THOMAS J. SCRIMENTI HON. THOMAS L. STEVENSON HON. THOMAS F. YEWCIC JEAN M. DAVIS REPORTER-NOTARY PUBLIC /:: ^ ARCHIVE REPORTING SERVICE t - ' JH 2336 N. Second Street (717)234-5922 E9BJ Harrisburg, PA 17110 FAX (717) 234-6190 » ^A-_ INDEX WITNESS PAGE Joseph Morrison 4 John Shaffer 61 Margie Jorgensen 89 Edward Blotzer 144 Marlene Tobin 183 Dr. James Barker 221 CHAIRMAN ROHRER: Good morning and welcome to the fourth Committee hearing scheduled under House Resolution 495, the purpose of doing fact finding on Pennsylvania Assistance on State Assessments. We are glad to be in Erie today on the northwestern part of the State, and we are looking forward to another day of good testimony as we attempt as a Committee to pull together the information that we need in order to come up with findings and recommendations on this topic that deals with the testing of our students and public schools in Pennsylvania. As we have been seeing, the days have been full and the testimony provided has prompted many questions. And, therefore, in order to try and keep us on schedule as much as possible, I'd like to get right to it. I'd like all of the Members of the Committee that are here this morning to introduce themselves, first of all, for the record and a little bit about where they represent and so fourth. We'll start down at the end with Representative Mundy. REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: Good morning. My name is Phyllis Mundy. I'm from Luzerne County. REPRESENTATIVE SCRIMENTI: Good morning. My name is Tom Scrimenti. Welcome to Erie County. This is my legislative district. Welcome everyone. CHAIRMAN ROHRER: I'd like to thank you, Representative Scrimenti, for being with us today. You are not part officially of this Committee, but we are glad that you are here and to be in your part of the State. It's beautiful out here. Representative Stevenson. REPRESENTATIVE STEVENSON: Tom Stevenson from Allegheny County. REPRESENTATIVE METCALFE: Good morning. Representative Daryl Metcalfe from Butler County, 12th District. CHAIRMAN ROHRER: And I'm Representative Sam Rohrer from Berks County, 28th District, down towards Reading. With those introductions being established, we would like to move forward with our first witness. I would like to call Joe Morrison, School Board Director for North Allegheny School District. Joe, please begin when you are ready. MR. MORRISON: Thank you. Allow me to begin, if you will, with a breaking news announcement. I have with me a copy of a resolution thao was passed Iy vee Mounm Leaanon ochoor Districn that came ous dn opposiMoon to baapner h on the rict testing. oe passep osis resoouChon unan4moushy on tugusn .1sW, ans e have grven copies no Aepresen1at,ve dtevenson io share wstt the panel. Gooe mornnng. had lwie to eegan ly thanking the legoslaoure gor passlng House tesokution e9l. slas rmporrana shag HoSA testing be ceoseuy exam9ne. and tiap ata temhers oS tte tenerae cssembly unmersdann tths tesling bor woat he Gs ana Aor whay the public thinks atoug fo. u liant ank oa oue subcommittee Members for theIr parkaclpation. I especially thank Represenfarive iam aotrer aor n.s passpon and focus on ress very emportanh subfect, anp sepresendafove oaryh sevcayfe por recognizeng a sdmilar passaon and Docus Mn me and oor envgning me ao siare pass wnta you shrouge my tesrimony ihis morning. Ateow me a tew momenis .o tell you a little bit about myself. I incmude in my cretentbats a uwenyy-year career dn iarge-scale cneernaiaonaa engnneereng, consrructlon ans project management. I was en cnarge os protecn management sysaems an. procesures hor a major Pettsmurgg-mased corporation. In this capacity, I traveled and worked on every continent (excluding Antarctica) on mining and minerals processing projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which employed thousands of professional and trade workers. Thereafter, I founded my own corporation which specialized in computer-based management and administrative systems designed to very high standards of accountability. My firm's products consisted of cost control, budgeting, finance, accounting, payroll, inventory control, property management and construction estimating systems. I served for six years as Chairman of the Board and CEO before retiring from corporate life. Currently, I serve on the Board of Directors of the North Allegheny School District, the largest suburban school district in Allegheny County, with a student enrollment of approximately 8300 and an annual budget of over $84 million. And I would parenthetically add that that calculates to slightly more than $10,000 per year expenditure per pupil. My formal testimony begins with a bit of levity. It's a short story about Joey. Joey was born with a bodily feature that made him different than the rest of us. In place of a lint ball/ he had a golden screw in his bellybutton. Joey noticed that nobody else had a bellybutton like his, and this made him very self-conscious about his unique feature. He constantly wondered about the purpose of the golden screw in his bellybutton. This tormented him for many years, until one night he awoke in a cold sweat from a very tumultuous nightmare. As he gathered his composure, he noticed in the dim moonlight a golden screwdriver on his pillow. He cautiously touched the screwdriver to see if it was real or only an illusion. Indeed, it was real. He pondered a few moments. Then he stood up in the middle of his bed, and as you probably expect, he inserted the golden screwdriver into the head of the golden screw. Slowly he turned the handle. One turn. Two turns. Three, four and five. Then in one swift motion he pulled the loosened golden screw from his bellybutton, whereupon his buttocks fell off. Joey's curiosity about the purpose of the golden screw in his bellybutton is analogous to my curiosity about the purpose of PSSA testing. I can't honestly say that I have been having cold sweats and nightmares over the matter. Several episodes of daytime musing and a few sleepless nights would be the worst of it. But, so far, I haven't found-the golden screwdriver on my pillow that has revealed to me the true purpose of PSSA testing. In the absence of any consistent explanation from the Department of Education on its purpose, I have only my speculations, and these I will now share with you. For several years as a private citizen, a parent and for the last three years as an elected school board director, I have followed, in a rather diligent manner, the precipitous decline of public education in Pennsylvania. It's not necessary, I don't believe, for me to sit here and give you another tedious recitation of its failings. Suffice it to say that our kids are not learning as much or as well as they once did. Our teachers are not as well prepared or as motivated as they should be. Our school administrators have little incentive to do anything more than to maintain the status quo and to make sure that all forms required by the PDE to monitor the operations of their school districts are properly completed and returned. Many of our elected school directors have little awareness or understanding of the decade's long philosophical war that has been financed and waged by the influential advocates of a progressive educational model against those of us who wish to retain a more traditional model. Whether or not you agree with these opinions, one thing beyond denial is that public education in Pennsylvania, for whatever reasons you may wish to blame, has become a political embarrassment. Our per-pupil costs have risen to be among the highest in the country, while our student academic achievement as measured by SAT scores have declined and are now among the lowest. Because of this embarrassment and because of the formation of hundreds of grassroots protest organizations which were becoming more vocal and politically active, something had to be done. But what was the Governor to do? Take on the teachers' unions? Outlaw teacher strikes? Require all teachers to be graduates of accredited colleges? To require them to have degrees in the subjects they teach? To insist that they have at least a B average in their major courses? Or maybe he could have told the Feds that Pennsylvania was no longer interested in converting its public schools from institutions of learning into community social service centers where all the feel-good programs that Washington wants, but is not willing to pay for, are administered by our school teachers and paid for by our local taxpayers. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, the Governor would probably want these things. The problem is at least so far in my opinion that he hasn't demonstrated the political backbone or the leadership skills necessary to make them happen. So what has he done? In lieu of the hard, meaningful reforms that are required to really improve education, the Governor has championed school-to-work legislation, the establishment of local workforce development boards, youth councils to formulate employment plans for "eligible" youth, the development of so-called academic standards, the creation of Seals of Proficiency. I like to call those State stickers. And the promulgation of Chapter 4 regulations.