For students' sake, use all education tools available

By Sharif El-Mekki

The final student walked away from our campus, and we did what all staffs do on the last day: let out a collective exhale over our broad, toothy grins. Over the next several weeks, we will continue to do what many other top-performing schools are doing - meeting in teams and looking closely at our student-performance data to solidify our plans for the next year.

As teachers and principals gather to analyze what we did right, what we missed, and how we can continue to help our students, having good data is essential. Data lets parents know how their children are progressing, individually and compared to other students, and it tells school leaders which teachers are most effective and which need more support. By rejecting assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards, Pennsylvania is missing data that would help students.

The state's Education Department initially joined 45 other states in adopting national Common Core standards. However, the state has opted out of the exams tied to those standards. Those tests, provided by the Partnership for Assessing Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, provide important data that would show the performance of Pennsylvania students in comparison with their peers around the nation.

Our state's standardized Keystone Exam will inform us of how our students are doing in comparison to other students around the state. However, the results will not reflect our students' performance relative to the nation, which is, from an educator's perspective, one of the really exciting parts of having tests that are used by multiple states.

This comparative data is vital in determining how our students fare in relation to students from California to Connecticut, and all states in between. Educators in partnership with parents and other decision-makers need that information in order to get a clearer understanding of the road we need to traverse for our students' achievement.

However, with Pennsylvania deciding that it will not use either of the exams that most other states are using, it will fall to the state Department of Education to provide that comparative analysis of our students' performance - and that will have its own costs.

When it comes to precious opportunities for colleges, scholarships, and careers, Pennsylvania students will be competing with students from across the country and globe. We must make sure that what educators are doing in our state is preparing students for this reality. Knowing exactly how our students are performing, and the level of effectiveness in teaching these new standards, is crucial to the success of our students, our commonwealth, and our nation.

I realize there are challenges in implementing nationwide tests, and that includes costs and technology limitations. However, instead of shunning the idea wholesale as Pennsylvania has done, it would be better to partner with state and national stakeholders to order to find solutions to these challenges.

While there are a variety of opinions about how to best address and improve upon the current education system, I remain hopeful about the positive change that the Common Core and the aligned assessments offer - a concrete way to raise the bar on education.

Embracing both these standards and the assessments will ensure that our school communities are delivering on the promise to provide a high-quality education. We must use all the tools available to keep our promise of college and 21st-century career readiness for our most important partners: our students.