By Chris Comisac
Bureau Chief
Capitolwire
State Education Secretary Pedro Rivera told lawmakers Tuesday he wants the Legislature to be a part of the decisions his department makes.
However, Rivera acknowledged that wasn’t the attitude he and his agency held this past summer when the decision was made to seek a federal waiver to pull Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores out of the state’s School Performance Profiles (SPPs) for the current year.
“By the time we shared that information with the General Assembly, we may not have established the proper protocol in terms of time, but … well, there is not ‘but,’ period. We could have engaged the General Assembly sooner,” Rivera said during his department’s Senate budget hearing Tuesday morning.
Senate Education Committee Minority Chairman Andy Dinniman, D-Chester, argued existing state law is clear in stating the PSSA scores, along with Keystone Exam scores, are part of the SPPs and he told Rivera he hopes nothing similar happens again.
“I have Act 82 before me and it requires school districts to use those evaluations from the PSSA scores in teacher evaluations,” said Dinniman. “I agree with your decision, by the way, but I don’t understand under what authority you did that.”
“If there’s a law, there’s a law,” Dinniman argued.
Rivera explained the rationale for making the PSSA decision as a somewhat imperfect response to a difficult and time-constrained situation.
“Last year … was the first year in which we aligned our state assessment, the PSSA, with the Pennsylvania Core Standards,” said Rivera. “Unfortunately the department did not work simultaneously to update the tools and resources that were made available to school districts that would best align to that assessment.”
“We put an assessment in place for the full state, but we didn’t put tools in place for teachers to teach the standards that were aligned to that assessment,” said Rivera. “So schools and children across the commonwealth were learning content that did not directly align.”
“We asked ourselves, ‘How can we assess children on standards we didn’t teach?’” Rivera said.
“We had one month to make a decision over the summer,” explained Rivera.
He said after internal department discussions and consultation with federal officials, the department moved forward based on guidance it received from the federal government.
“These were uncharted waters,” said Rivera, noting he and his staff had been in charge of the department for less than a year when this came up.
“If a law is passed, and it says how the evaluation is to be done, there are ways the department could have done exactly what you’re doing,” reacted Dinniman, suggesting the department could have requested a legislative fix or sought a change to existing regulations.
Argued Dinniman: “The fact of the matter is the department, on its own, decided without legislative input … or going through the regulatory process which was available to you, on its own decided that these scores, because they’re not aligned, will not be used in evaluation of teachers who teach K-8, but the Keystone scores will continue to be used for evaluation for [grades] 9-12,” which he said can get “a little confusing” when doing evaluations.
“We did follow the law that best aligned to the standards for evaluation,” countered Rivera. “As a result of the short timeline, we made a decision we thought was in the best interests of schools, students and educators.”
“I allowed one month turnaround, the fact that it was over the summer, to push me into a position where I made a decision that was the right decision, I believe, but that I could have communicated better,” Rivera later said. “As a result of that, we improved, increased and we engage with you much more efficiently.”
“The silver lining of this – as frustrating a process as it was and the number of conversations we’ve had regarding communication with the General Assembly – we ramped up our communication, that being PDE and communication with both your office and the offices of the other education chairs,” Rivera told Dinniman. “Since that time we’ve probably had numerous conversations around not only what we’re doing moving forward in the department, but what we intend on doing, or what we’re discussing moving forward in the department.”
One of those continued discussions is how teachers up through 8th grade will be evaluated this year since the PSSA test can’t be used.
“I committed to you to not make another decision without engaging the chairs of the education committees, and that’s one of our topics of discussion,” said Rivera, who told other senators (and House lawmakers during the department’s Tuesday afternoon hearing) the Legislature will be “an active partner” with the department regarding any education policy changes moving forward.
“I still think that the department has to be respectful to the law and to the authority of the Legislature …” cautioned Dinniman.
