The Pennsylvania Department of Education has released all of the Pennsylvania School Performance Profile results. The performance profile (aka school report card) scores districts on their academic performance.
It measures the academic performance of students in each school building, on a 100 point scale. It’s based on a number of criteria. “What the school performance profile does is go a little bit deeper into the academic performance of a school building. What’s looked at is graduation rates, attendance rates, student growth, academic growth [that students are showing from one year to the next] and the state assessments are part of the calculation also,” said Tim Eller, Press Secretary with the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The assessment gives a glimpse of what is going on in the classroom. “This puts a score on how schools are doing and it holds the schools accountable for the investment that tax payers are making. Statewide Pennsylvania taxpayers spend approximately 27 billion dollars in state local and federal tax revenues, that taxpayers pay through their payroll taxes, and all their other taxes that they pay,” said Eller.
The school performance profile will also be used as part of the new teacher evaluation system, or educator evaluation. It will affect teachers and building principals. The new evaluation system was signed into law in 2012 by Governor Corbett. It designates that a percentage of an educator’s evaluation be based on multiple measures of student achievement. “This is the first time in Pennsylvania history that an educator evaluation will be impacted by how students are doing academically,” said Eller. He says the assessment meets three important requirements. The first is transparency and accountability. The second is the teacher evaluation system. “The third measure is, it’s part of the states no child left behind waiver which we received during the summer. Where it’s a more rich assessment of how schools are doing.”
The results for a majority of the schools were released back in October. The rest were released this week. “There are approximately a little more than 600 schools that did not have a score released because of coding errors with the Keystone Exams. What was just recently announced by the secretary is the scores for more than 3,000 buildings across the state,” said Eller.
To see how your school did click here. [navigate through your county and school district]
To see a listing of all schools, divided by county click here [click on ‘Listing of all SPP scores by school’]