Academic Performance Needs Turnaround
As we advance further from the mandatory lockdowns from the pandemic, which began in 2020, many are discovering very unfavorable results, whether social, economic or academic, to name a few areas. The academic impacts are of key concern to the PR Kids First community. PR Kids First is not the only group to recognize performance drop amongst students.
Education Week - October 24, 2022 ==> Two decades of progress nearly gone, national math, reading scores hit historic lows.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette - November 30, 2022 ==> PA standardized test scores continue to lag behind pre-pandemic numbers.
CNN - January 30, 2023 ==> children lost about 35% of a normal school year’s worth of learning during the pandemic, study says.
Bringing this home, we can see that in Pine-Richland middle school, students suffered as well. As an example, grades 7 and 8 math proficiency scores in the PSSA test have dropped since the mandatory lockdowns and are continuing to stay down.
We would like to be clear though. This IS NOT a reflection of teachers performance. This is a reflection of keeping students out of school and in lockdown and hybrid lockdown status. The present math proficiency scores, however, needs to be recognized that it has fallen and is staying down. This cannot be ignored or brushed off. Laser focus needs to come from the school board and school administration. Goals need to be set to turn this downward trend upward.
To get a sense of why this is occurring, one needs to get inside the battle ground and have a conversation with teachers. You cannot sit up high and bring decisions down unless you understand the what and why’s of this situation.
Receiving direct feedback from Pine-Richland teachers, they believe there were contributing factors that had a major impact on lower PSSA scores in 2021 and 2022 as compared to pre-pandemic test scores.
Recent PSSA test questions were shared with us. The math questions are heavily centered around reading paragraphs before you can attack the problem with a mathematical resolution.
Residual effects of the pandemic include…..
o tests were now administered online. Not on paper as they had been done for many years past.
o increased student absenteeism.
o significant increase in online cheating.
So how do you correct this and attempt to get the scores raised to pre-pandemic levels? You go to the teachers, the battle ground, and ask them on how to solve. We were fortunate to be able to do so. Recommendations from the teachers can be summed up as follows:
o Bring back paper tests for PSSA. No more online testing
o Increase attendance of the students
o Take steps to increase homework integrity. Find ways to minimize the cheating.
Another data point for moving to paper testing is that an informal survey had been taken with 8th grade students and over 70% preferred a paper and pencil test. Interesting.
Our school board candidates are 100% committed to work with the teachers and the administration to turn this around. Pine-Richland has a strategic plan and agreeing to measurements in the plan so that we all have goals to achieve that will lead us back to levels of proficiency we achieved in years past.
From an achievement standpoint, in 2022, Pine-Richland had placed 20 students for National Merit Scholars. These students were in 8th grade in 2019, pre-pandemic, and were part of the 67% proficiency scoring that year in PSSA testing. That is something to be very proud of for our school district. One would be hard pressed to find another Pennsylvania school district that can put out this many National Merit Scholars. Be Proud Pine-Richland!
