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Phila. Expects to Test Positive: Methods Used to Prepare for This Week's State Tests Have the District Optimistic

Posted on: Monday, 20 March 2006, 03:03 CST

By Susan Snyder, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Mar. 20--State testing starts in Pennsylvania's public schools today, and Philadelphia officials are optimistic their students will do significantly better than last year.

Performance on "benchmark" tests given every six weeks has been about 10 percent higher than a year ago, said Gregory Thornton, the district's chief academic officer.

While the scores are similar to last year's, the district increased the difficulty of the tests this year at the suggestion of an outside academic group that evaluated the curriculum, Thornton's office said. That equates to about a 10 percent jump in performance, said Joe Lyons, a district spokesman.

The benchmark tests measure skills closely related to those measured by the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.

"Based on what I'm seeing we're in for a pretty good PSSA season," Thornton said Friday.

About 94,000 students in grades three through eight and in grade 11 will take the test in Philadelphia this week, with makeups offered next week. The tests are given in reading and math.

If the numbers hold, Thornton said, as many as 25 more schools will make adequate yearly progress as required under the federal No Child Left Behind law. But there is no way to know for sure, he said.

"It takes a crystal ball to do that, but I'm encouraged we're moving in the right direction," he said.

He based his comments on benchmark results from October, December and February.

After each test, teachers use results to target their students' weaknesses.

Enthusiasm in the schools is high, Thornton said. When he visited Swenson Arts and Technology High School, he said, teachers acted as educational "construction foremen" and wore yellow hard hats saying: "Students working on AYP [adequate yearly progress]."

"This stuff always took place in elementary schools, but this is a high school," he said. "That's the dynamic thing. There's a level of energy I see happening in the professional learning community that I didn't see two years ago."

Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

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