Fortunate morphing is occurring in Pennsylvania, fortunate for high school students and teachers, in particular. The Commonwealth’s Department of Education proposed a year ago the creation of graduation tests in the major content areas to be taken in addition to the PSSA exams given in eleventh grade. In essence, the focus on and amount of testing would have increased noticeably. Critics, rightfully, cited the collateral damage that would occur to curricula, instruction, and learning.
Through intense influence efforts, major educational associations and concerned citizens caught the ear of the State Board of Education. The result is a proposal from the Board for Keystone Exams to be created in key content areas as “end of course” exams. While the full proposal is forthcoming in August and will undergo a year of review, several key features are known.
The exams would replace the PSSAs in math, reading, and writing. Use of the state created exams would be optional for districts, which would create their own exams instead. Students would need to pass the end of course exams, state or locally created, in order to graduate. Those struggling would have opportunities for additional learning and re-testing.
While much remains to be seen in how the state tests are created and how local districts would validate their versions, morphing into the current proposal is promising for several reasons. This is a movement toward assessment “for” learning, the type that helps learners and teachers alike maximize their educations. Creating end of course exams can become powerful professional development, as teams of teachers and administrators come to consensus on what learning is essential and how it will be measured. The potential exists for de-emphasizing teaching, in keeping with the continuing cry against the negative consequences of NCLB.
Ironically, what the State Board is proposing mirrors language in the Commonwealth’s “Chapter 4” regulations, wherein local districts are given the autonomy to create a system of student assessment that leads toward establishing whether a student is eligible for graduation. That PA is embracing its own forward thinking regulations somehow lost in the crush of NCLB is promising.
