These comparisons illustrate the two ways the state measures performance. One shows if students have mastered the material they are supposed to know in a certain grade. The other shows how much they are learning from year to year, regardless of what level they start on.
Pennsylvania has long released results of the state PSSA tests, reflecting student achievement. Earlier this year, it began to show results for academic growth on a state website. This move was greeted with cheers from many frustrated school administrators who believe that their work helping students make gains, even if they are below grade level, has been underrated.
Student progress is tracked through the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System . PVAAS has become an important tool for determining whether students are making satisfactory steps.
Using state test scores, it compares how much they actually learned with a statistical measure of how much they should have learned. It is the extent to which students made academic progress during one or more school years.
Ronald J. Tomalis, Gov. Corbett's nominee for education secretary, put the PVAAS data on the Education Department's home page with other links, under the heading "How is my School/District performing?"
"This is another way of helping parents become better armed with information and become more engaged . . . to support their schools and to raise concerns" when they are not doing well, Tomalis said.
State tests that students take every year, he added, show "snapshots of the academic performance of kids or schools." PVAAS, he said, gives an added dimension: "the movement - the progress - of kids over time."
School officials have long said that student academic gains are not always reflected in tests that measure only if students are achieving at grade level.
