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KINGSTON — It may have been freshman State Rep. Aaron Kaufer’s show, but former Wyoming Valley West High School Principal Erin Keating injected blunt assessments of state education policy failures, particularly regarding a change in standardized tests that will make many schools look as though students have suddenly grown much dumber.

“I just wish that, before you roll out the next regulations, you look at how many places its going to impact the districts,” Keating, currently the Scranton School District elementary education supervisor, said during a two-hour “education policy seminar” Kaufer set up in the Wyoming Valley West Middle School Thursday.

“Consider where money for the training is, where the money for technology is, where the money for materials is. That’s where it hits the district budget.”

Keating cited new standardized tests rolled out last school year to match the new “Pennsylvania Core” standards, and the fact that the state notified districts only recently of the “cut scores” — the points in raw scores at which students are divided into “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” or “advanced.”

“The cut scores were changed, and with that we are seeing a dramatic decrease in the percent of students scoring proficient or advanced,” Keating said.

“We are attaching the teacher evaluation to this,” added Mollie O’Connell Phillips, a member of the State Board of Education’s Council of Basic Education, referring to the new evaluation system that uses standardized test scores for half of a teacher’s total evaluation. “It’s asinine.”

The cut score change also impacts class scheduling, staffing and budgets because the number of students deemed in need of remediation classes will soar.

“I had four remediation classes scheduled (for the coming school year) because that’s what I always had, and now I need 18,” Keating continued. “Your looking at remediating 50 to 60 percent of the student body. How is that humanly possible?”

And students who take remediation classes are missing other opportunities such as art or shop, preventing the district from meeting another state goal: Helping students explore career pathways.

“You’re robbing from one area to give to another area,” Keating said, “and in the process of all this the person suffering is the kid.”

Resetting the cut scores was necessary because the new tests are meant to align with new standards, and the new standards are considered more rigorous. Many predicted a statewide drop in scores as a result of the change, and the common assumption is that scores will improve as districts adapt.

While scores are not yet available, data has dribbled out of the department of education — districts see their scores before they are made public, in part so they can challenge any data they suspect is inaccurate.

According to various reports across the state, the number of students scoring proficient has dropped much more steeply in math tests than it did in reading tests, with as much as 40 percent of students statewide slipping from proficient or better to basic or or worse under the new system. Keating cited the 40 percent figure during her comments as well.

Phillips said many state changes appear to be made without full consideration of impact. “In my opinion, they don’t look at the history, they don’t stay with anything long enough,” she said.

The people making state decisions “all speak to each other in that language, and believe each other,” Phillips said. “The people in the field, where the rubber meets the road, never have the opportunity to say ‘well, that’s not going to work’.”

The result, she said metaphorically, is that “we spend millions of dollars weighing the cow to gauge the quality of the milk.”

The third member of Kaufer’s panel, former PDE government relations director Jordan Gouker, spoke several times of attempts by legislators to give districts more leeway through waivers and other changes, though most are still pending.

Kaufer, a Republican and a Wyoming Valley West alumnus, steered the conversation to the topic of special education, which, Gouker noted, was the topic of a recent commission that recommended state aid be doled out under a new formula providing money based on the severity of support needed by district students. For years, districts have received the same amount regardless of actual costs.

But Keating and several people in an audience — comprised of school board members and administrators from area districts — complained there is also a need to curb special education lawsuits, which drive district costs up dramatically. Keating said parents increasingly skip an optional mediation step available to them, in which they can sit down with district administration and try to work out a program for a child that all agree on.

Wyoming Valley West School Board member John Gill, an attorney, asked if the state could limit the money an attorney can earn in such cases. “Restrict the fees and these guys would be gone,” he said, quickly acknowledging he was talking about his own profession. “Just don’t let them know I said that.”

The panel also touched on the complicated PlanCon process districts must go through to get reimbursement for construction projects. Gouker noted there are efforts to revise the process and to provide more money for renovations rather than new construction. “Right now you can’t go through PlanCon for renovations, so districts let building go and then build new.”

Wyoming Valley West Business Manager Joe Rodriguez said the backlog in the system has meant his district is still waiting for several million dollars in reimbursement for the expansion and renovation of State Street elementary. He said the district has dipped deep into reserves because of the delay. “Any progress you can make would be greatly appreciated.”

State Rep. Aaron Kaufer hsted an education policy seminar at the Wyoming Valley Middle School in Kingston Thursday morning. Shown, from left to right are: Kaufer; Mollie O’Connell Phillips, a member of the Council of Basic Education of the Pennsylvania Board of Education; Erin Keating, supervisor of elementary education at Scranton School District and Jordan Gouker, former government relations director of the state Department of Education.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_TTL073115edpolicy.jpg.optimal.jpgState Rep. Aaron Kaufer hsted an education policy seminar at the Wyoming Valley Middle School in Kingston Thursday morning. Shown, from left to right are: Kaufer; Mollie O’Connell Phillips, a member of the Council of Basic Education of the Pennsylvania Board of Education; Erin Keating, supervisor of elementary education at Scranton School District and Jordan Gouker, former government relations director of the state Department of Education. Clark Van Orden | Times Leader

By Mark Guydish

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Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish