Philip M. Young Jr.

1. Saegertown Elementary School PENNCREST School District Mrs. Julie Lyon – SES Principal Mrs. Constance Youngblood - Superintendent Philip M. Young Jr.

2. The Question • Are Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Evaluations of fifth grade students indicators of student performance on the Reading portion of the PSSA’s Multiple Measures Utilized • Teacher perceptions, student learning, and school processes are all measures used to analyze the question. • These three measures are utilized to effectively determine what components regarding student assessment will most drastically alter the data being analyzed.

3. What the Data Indicates • Data from 09-10 fifth grade students was analyzed. • Of the 90 students in the fifth grade, 34 students showed little or no correlation • Of these 34, 12 students showed absolutely no correlation between benchmark evaluations and the PSSAs

4. What is Correlation in this Study • Correlation occurs if… • Above level students achieve Advanced • On level students achieve proficient or basic • Below level students achieve basic or below basic.

5. The Results

6. Analysis of Data • Of the 34 students showing little or no correlation between benchmark evaluations and PSSA results…. • 22 students achieved lower than the evaluations predicted on the PSSAs • 12 students achieved higher than the evaluations predicted on the PSSAs

7. Analysis of Data Continued • Distribution of students achieving non-correlating assessment results • Of the 34 students… • Teacher 1 had 7 • Teacher 2 had 10 • Teacher 3 had 6 • Teacher 4 had 11 • Teacher 2 and teacher 4 had almost 62 percent of the total students.

8. Individual Teacher Results • The individual teacher results showed teacher 2 and teacher 4 having a significantly higher number of non-correlating results than the other two teachers. • Even more puzzling is that these two teachers had nearly the same number of students scoring above the expected level • This means the difference in students who scored lower than expected between teacher 2 and 4 from teacher 1 and 3 is even more significant.

10. Individual Teacher Results Cont’d • While teacher 2 and 4 had a significant increase in students over teacher 1 and 3, the ratio of below expected level achievers and above expected level achievers is similar between teachers 1, 2, and 4. • Only teacher 3 had the same number of students achieve above and below their expected levels on the PSSAs. • This teacher also had the lowest number of non-correlated student performances.

11. The Plan of Action - Students • Students with non-correlating assessment results will be benchmarked again by the reading specialist to determine accuracy of benchmark evaluations • Students scoring lower than expected on the PSSAs will receive additional instruction and exposure to PSSA type questions to improve their PSSA scores

12. Plan of Action - Teachers • Teachers with a high number of non-correlating results will receive additional benchmark evaluation professional development to ensure accuracy of evaluation methods. • Teachers with a high number of students performing below the expected level will receive additional staff support and development in instruction of those students.