Charter schools just want be to judged by the same criteria as traditional schools to level the playing field, one official said.
A switch in the way Pennsylvania measures charter school compliance with federal math and reading benchmarks means it’s now easier for charters than traditional public schools to meet standards.
Education Secretary Ron Tomalis made the change without federal approval to alter the way the state grades compliance, known as adequate yearly progress, with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The switch holds all “local education agencies,” which include charter schools, to the same AYP grading standard that public school districts are held to. Yet, individual traditional schools are being held to a different standard.
It’s a switch the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools has asked for as charter school enrollment grows in the state.
“Many of the charter schools are bigger than the districts but the way of calculating AYP has not changed,” said Bob Fayfich, executive director of the coalition.
Fayfich says charter schools just want be to judged by the same criteria as traditional schools to level the playing field.
Bethlehem Area Superintendent Joseph Roy says the switch makes test scores misleading.
"You have a charter school with 300 kids that now we are pretending
they're a district so it's easier for them to make AYP," Roy said.
An analysis by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association found that 44 of 77 charter schools that made AYP in 2011-12 actually fell short of academic performance targets that other public schools met. The analysis doesn’t take into account schools that could make AYP with curved scores because that data is not available, PSBA spokesman Steve Robinson said.
“We’re definitely against the change,” Robinson said. “We don’t think that it’s fair or even following the law that they can make such a change without first getting such approval”
In July 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Education applied to the U.S. Department of Education for this and other revisions, spokesman Tim Eller said.
“The requested revision would simply provide uniformity for all schools in Pennsylvania when calculating AYP,” he said. “As of October 2012, the U.S. Dept. of Education had not communicated any concerns with Pennsylvania’s request to implement the revision.”
The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
Until this year, charter schools were held to the same standards as public schools.
For a school to make AYP, the overall student body must score proficient or above on math and reading tests. And in schools with certain demographics, of 40 or more students, if one group misses one target the entire school doesn’t make AYP.
School districts are measured by grade span, 3-5; 6-8 and 9-12, and only one of the spans must hit testing targets for a district to make AYP.
Charter schools will now be measured by grade span so as long as enough students score proficient in one grade span and meet attendance requirements, the school makes AYP.
“It masks the deficiencies that a charter school may have,” Robinson said, adding it also means struggling charters could miss out on mandated corrective fixes.Roy says he finds the switch ironic. When Tomalis announced statewide PSSA test results, he blamed a drop in test scores on tighter security measures spurred by adult cheating in a fraction of the state’s schools.
“It’s just ironic that the secretary himself played fast and loose with the test rules when he is accusing teachers across the state with cheating,” Roy said. “I think it’s all for a political end.”
Roy believes Tomalis and Gov. Tom Corbett are trying to bolster the case for sending more state dollars toward charter schools and vouchers.
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