School Board Calls PA's Testing Law 'Inane'

Springfield School Board President Keith Black thinks that the Pennsylvania laws surrounding PSSA results are inane.

“It just goes to show how inane the Pennsylvania law is,” Black said.  “That our district could get a warning.”

The Springfield School District recently got an AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) warning from the state because two special education students failed to graduate in the state mandated time frame of four years.

The district received this warning despite the fact that the students were allowed to take extra time to graduate because they had IEPs (Individual Education Programs), and the district would have violated federal law if they had forced the students to graduate in four years.

“There is an obvious conflict between state and federal law,” said district Superintendent Dr. James Capolupo.  “We will always act in the best interest of the student.”

Besides for special education students, the district also received a warning for the math performance at the high school level.

The state set a goal that said 78 percent of Springfield juniors needed to be proficient or better in math for the 2011-12 school year.

Only 69 percent of the districts juniors actually scored proficient or better.

“If you looked at our AYP results from previous years you would notice that we also didn’t hit the state goal,” said district director of Educational Services Dr. Gary Mattei.  “But we didn’t receive a warning.”

Dr. Mattei added, “The state allows us to avoid a warning if we continue to show growth.  Well, this year there was no growth.”

Springfield juniors ranked sixth in the county in math for the 2011-12 PSSAs.

“Our 11tth graders know how to do math,” Dr. Mattei said.  “They just didn’t show it on their PSSAs.”

Mattei added, “Our AP (advanced placement) scores in math are up.  Our SAT scores in math are up.  The district isn’t failing.  We just received a warning.”