Posted: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 10:30 am | Updated: 2:40 pm, Tue Dec 4, 2012.
Posted on December 4, 2012
by Joan Hellyer
Pennsylvania is starting this week to test high school juniors with a Keystone Exam to see how much they know about biology.That has area students worried that they haven't been properly prepared.
Most high school juniors studied those subjects at least one to two years ago. Some expressed concern that the time away from the subjects could affect their scores on what state officials say are "more rigorous" tests.
“It is pretty inconvenient for students who haven't really worked with these topics for over a year like (me),” said Lennox McGrain, a Council Rock High School South junior. Lennox, 16, is a member of the newspaper’s reality team.
“We've been doing a fair amount of ‘crash review’ in class,” Lennox said. “I don't know how much help that will be to us, but hopefully the exams aren't more difficult than expected.”
The state education department is making the move to the Keystone Exams for secondary students before securing approval from the U.S. Department of Education, a spokesman said. It initially sought federal permission early this year to use the Keystone tests instead of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams used previously to test high school juniors.
“Through verbal and email discussions, the department has not received any indication that this request will be denied, and since the Keystone Exams are more rigorous, the department anticipates the U.S. Department of Education will approve the request,” state education department spokesman Tim Eller said.
States are required to let the U.S. Department of Education know if any "significant changes" will be made to its assessments system, an official at the federal agency said on Tuesday.
The testing changes can be implemented before states receive full federal approval, said the U.S. Department of Education official who asked not to be identified.
Federal authorities are evaluating Pennsylvania's proposed changes and "anticipate having a response ready soon," the official said.
The PSSA tests -- administered to students in third- through eighth-grade -- test kids' overall abilities in mathematics, reading, science and writing. The Keystone Exams test secondary students' abilities in specific areas of a subject, the state education department spokesman said.
Like the PSSA tests for younger students, the Keystone results will be used to determine Adequate Yearly Progress for secondary students, Eller said. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires states to test students to see if they are achieving AYP status.
“I don't think the results of this first year of testing for juniors will be successful,” said Joanna Spiel, 17, a Pennsbury High School junior and also a reality panel member. “This is because when we learned the material for the courses we were never told that we would be later tested (about them).”
The state education department did not inform districts until summer that the Keystone Exams would be used instead of the PSSAs for secondary students. That was after schools had already set up their PSSA schedule for 2012-13.
Educators had a few months to reshuffle their school calendar to accommodate the testing.
For instance in Neshaminy, during the PSSA testing days in previous years, juniors would arrive at normal time in the morning for the tests. Each session lasted about three hours. Afterward, freshmen, sophomores and seniors would arrive at school in the late morning to take a half-day of regular classes with the juniors.
With the Keystone Exams, the routine is reversed, according to the schedule posted at www.neshaminy.k12.pa.us. All students will report for class in the morning on Thursday and Friday and go through an abbreviated schedule of classes. Freshmen, sophomores and seniors will be dismissed at 12:14 p.m. and juniors will take the Keystone Exam in biology for the last two hours of each school day.
Neshaminy plans to follow a similar routine later in the school year to administer the other Keystone tests, principal Robert McGee said in a newsletter posted on the district’s website.
Juniors will not be the only students who take the Keystone Exams this school year, officials said. Younger students who already have taken or are taking the algebra 1, biology or literature courses will take the respective standardized exam, the state education department spokesman said.
The testing could range from seventh- through 10th-grade students, depending on when they take the specified English, math or science class, he said. Testing schedules and windows vary by school.
For Neshaminy, that means the high school “will be administering in excess of 4,000 Keystone exams this year,” McGee said in the newsletter.
Kristen Lovely, a junior at Council Rock High School North in Newtown Township, started taking the Keystone biology test Tuesday. She said she understands the reasoning for standardized exams to test students’ development.
But Kristen, 16, another reality team member, questions the state’s handling of the changeover to the Keystone Exams.
“I do not think we are properly prepared to the fullest extent. I specifically mean the math exam, which is designed to test students on algebra 1,” Kristen said. “Some of these review questions are questions that I was asked back in eighth grade. I don't have my eighth grade notes, and I have more pressing issues than to go relearn an entire chapter of algebra online.”
Fellow CR North junior David Augustine also took issue with the "inconvenience" of the test taking.
"My physics teacher had to take time out of her lessons to teach us biology so we are behind on our (physics course) material," said David, 16, a reality team member.
The Keystones will be administered to only secondary students who have taken algebra 1, biology or literature. The state will again use the PSSA tests in math, reading, science and writing in early 2013 to test third- through eighth-graders to see if they are learning at grade level, officials said.
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