1. What is the purpose of
the School Performance Profile?
The PA School Performance
Profile is designed to serve several purposes:
- Provide a
building level score for educators as part of the Educator Effectiveness System.
- Provide parents
with performance measures for the school of residence, neighboring schools, and
schools across the state.
- Inform the public
of the academic performance measures of each district, school, comprehensive
career and technical center, cyber charter and charter school in Pennsylvania.
- Provide a tool to
inform goal setting, planning, and resource allocation to improve student
achievement.
2. What do these scores mean to my child and our family?
Overall, the scores for all schools in Peters Township are very good. Administrators and data teams within the schools are looking closely at the data to determine where improvements can be made and what strategies are working best that can be employed in other areas of the District. The scores are just one way for us to evaluate how well our students achieve and will help us set goals for the future.
3. What role does the School
Performance Profile play in Educator Effectiveness?
Act 82 of 2012 addresses the
evaluation of the effectiveness of professional employees and temporary
professional employees serving as classroom teachers and principals. The School
Performance Profile academic performance score comprises 15% of each teacher
and principal’s evaluation and will be a part of the educator effectiveness
system for teachers starting with the 2013-2014 school year and for principals
in the 2014-2015 school year.
4. What is the source of the
data used in the calculations? Who performs the calculations?
All data comes from PDE’s
authoritative data sources such as PSSA results from Data
Recognition Corporation, Bureau
of Assessment and Accountability, Bureau of Special Education, Bureau of Career
and Technical Education, Education Names and Addresses (EdNA), Pennsylvania
Information Management System (PIMS), Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment
System (PVAAS) results from SAS, Inc., Advanced Placement (AP), SAT results from the College Board, and ACT
results from ACT, Inc.
5. Is the
School Performance Profile (SPP) replacing Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)?
With the
approval of Pennsylvania’s ESEA Flexibility Waiver, AYP is no longer the
federal accountability measure. The SPP provides an academic performance score
for all schools.
6. How
frequently will the School Performance Profile be released?
The
Pennsylvania School Performance Profile will be released annually each fall.
7. How were the academic data
elements chosen? How was the weighting for each data element determined?
Teams of
educators, statisticians, and psychometricians analyzed research to identify
factors that define high performing schools. Data elements are linked to
research related to high achieving schools.
8. How are
Historically Underperforming Students identified?
This category
replaces the various subgroups previously identified for purposes of AYP. Historically Underperforming Students are defined as a
non-duplicated count of students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged
students, and English Language Learners enrolled for a full academic year
taking the PSSA/Keystone Exams. If a student is in more than one of the
individual groups (e.g., special education and English Language Learner), s/he
is only included in the Historically Underperforming Student group one time – a
non- duplicated count. This group is not a cohort but rather students currently
in the building meeting the definition during the reported year.
9. How is
Closing the Achievement Gap calculated?
Closing the
Achievement Gap is calculated for each of the PSSA/Keystone Exam subjects
(Mathematics/Algebra I, Reading/Literature, Writing, and Science/Biology). The
achievement gap is determined by comparing the baseline percent of students who
are proficient or advanced to the goal of 100% proficiency. The benchmark for
success is defined as closing one-half of the achievement gap over a six-year
period.
10. How does
a school determine whether or not it is meeting its annual target in Closing
the Achievement Gap?
The six-year target
will be defined in the baseline year, 2012-2013; as each year progresses, the
annual cumulative closure will be calculated. As long as a school is meeting
the overall closure, it will be defined as meeting its annual target.