Superintendent's Blog
Here are the latest entries from our Superintendent's blog. You
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The movement to a standards-based report card is progressing. It has been decided that a numerical grade ranging from a 1 to a 4 will be utilized at the primary level (grades K-3) while a percentage-based grade will continue to be utilized in grades 4-12. It is our goal for the final report card product that the specific standards that composed the majority of the reading and math grades and the student attainment levels of those standards be listed below the reading and math grades.
Published 5/26/2010
The Standards-Based Report Card Committee has met twice over the past few weeks to discuss the reporting categories related to reading that will appear on future standards-based report cards. The National Reading Panel has identified phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, fluency and comprehension as the most important reading skills. These skills are found in the PA Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening in Standards 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3. The committee is continuing to work on narrowing down the reporting categories within reading to six categories. Once this is accomplished, the committee will focus its efforts on the math reporting categories.
Published 5/10/2010
A great article on the topic of grading scales, specifically the difference between a 100 point percentage-based system and a four-point system, is "The Case Against the Zero," by Douglas Reeves. This article can be found on the Internet or in the December 2004 edition (Volume 86, No. 4) of Phi Delta Kappan.
Published 4/9/2010
Report Cards and Grades Part 1
The Susquehanna Community School District is investigating the move to standards-based reports cards at the elementary school and implementing a four-point grading scale at all grade levels. The move to a standards-based report card at the elementary level will allow teachers to better communicate how students are attaining the Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening and Mathematics. Standards-based report cards will not look very different from the current report cards in grades K-3, but they will be noticeably different from the current report cards in grades 4-6. The use of letters and percentages as grades will change to a four-point grading scale with the implementation of standards-based report cards. In this type of grading scale the numbers correspond to the PSSA performance levels, where a “4” equals “advanced” work down to a “1” that identifies “below basic” performance. At the high school level, the change will be completely associated with course numerical grades. The four-point scale, which is utilized by many high schools and the entire college/university system, would replace the current percentage-based grading scale at the high school. The four-point scale is more equitable than the current percentage-based grading scale. In the current system, a failing grade could be anywhere between a zero (0) and a 69. However, in the four-point scale, all failing grades receive a “0,” while D’s receive a “1,” C’s equate to a “2,” B’s correspond to a “3,” and A’s are denoted by a “4.” The four-point scale has exactly the same amount between each grading scale, while the current percentage based system has only 31 of 100 points in the passing range.
Published 3/24/2010
Report Cards and Grades Part 2
The movement to a standards-based report card for the elementary school will not be easy. Identifying which academic standards to report will take much consideration on the part of teachers and administrators. A grade-reporting template will also have to be developed to accommodate the use of performance standard descriptors. As for the four-point scale replacing the percentage-based system at the high school, this will also be a “work in progress.” The new system, if adopted, may have to be “phased in” in grades 9-12 due to the fact that GPAs for students in those grades are already being calculated with the percentage-based system. Both of these potential changes are intended to help the district communicate student performance in a more efficient and effective manner.
Published 3/24/2010
Governor Rendell has recently proposed a plan to resolve the pending PSERS crisis. His proposal has two distinct elements. First, the fiscal liabilities faced by PSERS would be re- amortized over 30 years. Second, instead of the massive increases in state and school district contributions over the next three years that are currently projected, the state would require a more gradual increase in contributions. With Rendell's proposal, the state and school districts would face an increase of only 1% of payroll (equal to a 21% increase in the PSERS contribution rate) for the 2010-2011 fiscal year compared to the 3.44% payroll increase (equal to a 72% increase in the PSERS contribution rate) that was already set by PSERS for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. After 2010-2011, school districts and the state would face an annual increase in contributions of no more than 3% under Rendell's pl
an.
Published 3/5/2010
More details of the pension reform bill (
HB 2135) have been made available through the January 8, 2010 edition of
PSBA's School Leader News. Under the new reform bill, the pension system would have a new class of employees who would belong to both a defined benefit system and a defined contribution system. Under the defined benefit component of the proposed hybrid pension system, new employees would contribute 3.25% of their salary, have a multiplier of 1% and go through a 10 year vesting period. With the defined contribution component, employees would have to contribute a minimum of 3% of their salary to an Individual Annuity Savings Account, but could contribute a higher percentage. School districts would have to contribute 2% of the employees salary to this side of the hybrid system. Overall, in this new hybrid system, new employees would contribute a minimum of 6.25% of
their salary compared to the mandated 7.5% being contributed by current employees.
Published 1/27/2010
The state legislators for our legislative districts are Representative Sandra Major and Senator Lisa Baker. Representative Major can be contacted through her website at
http://repmajor.com and Senator Baker can be contacted through her website at
http://senatorbaker.com .
Published 1/11/2010
PSBA (Pennsylvania School Boards Association) has had its pension proposal introduced into both houses of the PA General Assembly. The
PSBA proposal to fix the "pension crisis" in Pennsylvania involves changing the pension benefits and pension structure for all new school employees hired after June 30, 2010. The defined pension benefits for these new employees would be lower than those for current school employees but the new employees would have the ability to make contributions to a defined contribution program. The proposal allows new school employees to have the benefits of both a defined contribution system and a defined benefit system while reducing the financial burden on school district and state taxpayers.
Published 1/6/2010
