PA: Testing Stutter Steps
Pennsylvania may or may not be close to getting a budget, or a temporary budget patch, or a deal to at least pay schools while the full budget continues to circle the drain. The new changes about every three or four hours.
But word comes out of Harrisburg that the budget talks also include discussion-- again-- of the use of the Keystone exams as a graduation requirement.
The Keystones are our version of the Big Standardized Test, theoretically aligned to the Pennsylvania Core Standards. The Pennsylvania Core Standards are of course one more version of the Common Core that are totes different from the national version because ours have the word "Pennsylvania" in the title and also don't have the word "Common" in the title, so completely different thing, absolutely. The Keystones are also our very own exam system even though I once sat through a state training on the testing in which we used PARCC materials and were assured those would work just fine. So there's that.
The original grandiose plan was for Keystone exams in every single subject area, but some problems have emerged with that plan including A) it turns out to be hard, B) it turns out to be expensive and C) pretty much everybody thinks the tests we have so far are crap.
It is C that has triggered an ongoing discussion about using the Keystones as graduation requirements. That requirement is supposed to happen for the class of 2017, which means that it's happening now because most schools give the exams in 10th or 11th grade in order to have some wiggle room to rescue the fails. People can't help noticing that a huge number of students who have are otherwise likely to complete graduation requirements are likely to be denied a diploma because of this crappy bubble test. And yes-- the Keystone is transparently the same old stupid bubble test because we have avoided on-line testing because we tried it once years ago and it was disastrous, so we are still bubbling in dots with our pencils.
Many of our legislators would like to press pause. And last summer, State Senator Lloyd Smucker managed to get a bill to pause the Keystones as a grad requirement for at least two years. This is no small thing-- Smucker is no friend of public education, but in fact has been a mover and shaker in pushing a Pennsylvania Achievement School District, a tool that Tennessee reformsters have found simply awesome for privatizing public schools. So even Smucker thinks that Keystones-as-grad-requirements is not ready for prime time. Which makes a little sense-- privatizers need to label CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Testing Stutter Steps: