Pennsylvania Department of Education Releases 2016 School Performance Profiles

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The state Department of Education (PDE) released 2016 School Performance Profile (SPP) scores to the public Thursday, Secretary Pedro A. Rivera said.

SPP scores will be available on the PA School Performance website (http://paschoolperformance.org/) at 11 AM, and PDE will offer a conference call this afternoon to reporters with Deputy Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, Matt Stem, to provide information about the 2016 SPP.

WHAT: PDE will provide background and answer questions on the SPP.
WHEN: TODAY, October 13, 2016 at 1:00 PM
WHERE: This call is limited to members of the media. Please RSVP to Casey Smith at [email protected] to receive call-in information.

"Schools, teachers, and communities are working hard to prepare Pennsylvania's students to graduate college and career ready, and to be able to compete in the 21^st century job market," Rivera said. "The SPP is one indicator of how schools are supporting student learning, however the SPP uses a formula that is heavily dependent on standardized test scores. At Governor Wolf's direction, the department has been engaged in a dialogue with stakeholders for over a year to determine how to make the SPP a better, more holistic measure."

The 2016 SPP follows a year-long pause in the calculation of scores for a majority of Pennsylvania schools last year, which was put in place to mitigate the unintended impacts of changes in student performance on the newly-aligned PSSA. Consequently, this year's SPP scores are the first to reflect student performance on the new more rigorous PSSA.

"The process of transitioning to the new, more rigorous PA Core Standards is ongoing, and schools, administrators, and teachers have been working diligently to design curriculum, update lesson plans, and align learning tools to the new standards," Rivera said. "As these improved resources are instituted in our classrooms, student performance on the PSSA is anticipated to grow.

"Improved student performance on standardized assessments will have a positive impact on future SPP scores under the existing formula."

MEDIA CONTACT: Nicole Reigelman, 717.783.9802

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Education

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us