2003
Grades 3, 5, 8 and 11 Mathematics and Reading
Assessments
Information for Parents (or Guardians)
The PSSA is designed to
provide information about the quality of schools to parents, school districts
and the general public. Frequent
questions and answers about the PSSA are:
Who is participating?
In all 501 school districts, students in grades 5, 8 and 11
will take the mathematics and reading assessments. Nonpublic and private schools may participate
on a voluntary basis.
When will the assessments occur? How long will it take?
The assessments will be scheduled by the school district to
take place between March 31 though
Which students will take the assessments?
Since the assessments are
designed to help determine the quality of the school programs, all students are
to be included in the assessments. This
excludes only a few very specific exceptions.
The assessments will be available for parents to review in
the school district beginning two weeks prior to the administration of the
assessments. The assessments must be
reviewed on school property. After
reviewing the assessments, if parents don’t want their children to respond to
specific items or to participate in the mathematics or reading assessments due
to a conflict with their religious beliefs, they may write a note to the school
district superintendent to excuse their child from the assessments.
Who will administer the assessments?
Each school chooses the persons who will administer the
assessments. In most cases, these are
the students’ teachers, who are often helped by the principal or guidance
counselor.
Can parents see the assessments?
Parents may review the assessments by making arrangements
with the school assessment coordinator once the assessments arrive at the
school. No copies of the assessments or
notes about items will be permitted to leave the school. Since there are multiple forms, there is no
way to determine which forms or prompt a student will be receiving, so parents
will be allowed to review all forms for their child’s grade level.
What will the assessments include?
Each student will take two sets of items for each of the
mathematics and reading assessments. The
first set will be the same for al students.
The second set will consist of different groups of items distributed
randomly. These different items allow
broader coverage of the mathematics and reading content taught by the
schools.
Who decided that the assessments should measure?
Groups of educators from all levels of education in
What will be assessed in reading?
The reading assessment addresses two elements of the reading
process. Students will (1) indicate the
use of effective strategies for before, during or after
reading situations, and (2) after reading either a fiction or non-fiction
passage, they will be questioned about their comprehension of what was read. (Students
will not be permitted to use palm pilots, dictionaries, thesauri, spell- or
grammar-checkers.) In addition,
students respond to items related to the characteristics and functions of the
English language and research skills.
There will also be tasks that require students to write their responses
in paragraph form to supplement the selected-response items.
What will be assessed in mathematics?
Through the use of both selected-response items and
performance tasks, the mathematics assessment addresses eleven major standards
categories. The proportion of items
devoted to each standards category varies by grade level. As a part of the assessment of standard number
two, Computation and Estimation, students will respond to a special section of
items in which a calculator will not be permitted. The performance tasks require the students to
show all of their mathematical work (calculations, graphs, drawings, etc.) and
explain in writing how they solved the problems.
How will the written responses be scored?
The written responses for mathematics and reading items will
be scored by evaluators trained in applying a pre-set scoring system. In mathematics and reading, scores will be
based on content.
How will the results be reported?
Two copies of the Individual Student Report for mathematics
and reading will be sent to the school districts
for distribution to parents,
teachers and guidance counselors and/or principals. The state will not receive any reports with
individual names included.
Results will be reported by school for curricular and
planning purposes. School districts will
publish the results of PSSA testing for each school. The state will also release school-by-school
assessment data.