We discovered that the district curriculum was written off of a program that the district had purchased, and not necessarily state standards. We looked at our state standards, reviewed the curriculum and saw how we could work a little smarter. The teachers were following the district curriculum, so we didn’t know why the scores weren’t reflecting the teaching effort. For a couple years, our end-of-grade test scores were low. How has student performance improved since implementing PVAAS?Ĭherny: One good example I can share pertains to fourth-grade science. And if we continue to just focus on growth, the proficiency will eventually come. Instead, we're going to focus on how much we can grow them. With PVAAS, teachers feel like they're at an even playing field, because we really stress that we're not going to focus on how behind students are. And you can't really plan for it – it's so transient, students are coming and going. Prior to PVAAS, our teachers felt like they were at a disadvantage because we're getting kids coming in the door two or three years below grade level, and it’s impossible to catch a kid up three grade levels in one year. So having one teacher who really understands how to do that – and has demonstrated through the data that they can do that well – allows us to make different student placements. Sometimes we find that it's more of a challenge to grow the advanced students because not all educators know how to keep them growing. For instance, I have a fifth-grade teacher who is phenomenal at growing advanced students. We've moved teachers to different grade levels based on what we've seen. We’re looking at things like: Is the teacher developing their students as expected? Then we look at the teacher's strengths in terms of growth for high-, middle- and low-achieving students. We dig down into the data, and we make decisions based on what the data is telling us in terms of who needs extra support in their instruction. We begin by reviewing PVAAS data at the whole-school level, then I review it individually with the teachers. Second, we use PVAAS data as a motivator to show teachers that their hard work and commitment is making a difference in student growth. First, we use PVAAS data to ensure we’re playing to the strengths of each teacher so they can have the greatest impact on their students. How are teachers benefiting from your school's use of PVAAS?Ĭherny: My answer is twofold. Since we began using PVAAS to help place students in the ideal math class, 90-96 percent of our students have been proficient or advanced on end-of-course exams. We started to use that information to make decisions about who was going into our pre-algebra and algebra sections, specifically the students that we were accelerating. That's a good indicator of student success – and which students need some support to change the upcoming projection. By the time a child reaches middle school, there’s several years’ worth of data that goes into PVAAS. Students begin taking these end-of-grade tests in the third grade. Taylor: One predictor of student performance is based on students’ PSSA scores. How did you use PVAAS to place students in the ideal classes or services to meet their needs? Once students were enrolled in those classes, we wanted to make sure that we were supporting them appropriately to ensure their success. Now, we can look at different groups of students and their achievement levels to see where we’re doing a good job nurturing our students.Īaron Taylor, Principal, Waynesboro Area Middle School (Franklin County): One of the biggest things that the district administrators and I were interested in was determining a better way to place our students into math classes, particularly pre-algebra and algebra. Each year, we’ve added a little more, digging a little deeper. Stacey Cherny, Principal, South Side Elementary School (Dauphin County): We initially focused on the school value-added report, looking at how we are growing students at the fourth- and fifth-grade levels. What challenges were you trying to address with PVAAS?
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