Pennsylvania Education Secretary Pedro Rivera Visits Bristol Township School District, Talks Education Funding and School Accountability

CROYDON, Pa., Dec. 16, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- State Education Secretary Pedro A. Rivera today met with administrators, students, and educators at Bristol Township School District in Bucks County, as part of Governor Wolf's statewide Schools That Teach tour.

Since taking office, the Wolf Administration has invested in students and schools as part of its mission to create schools that teach, more than $640 million additional secured in consecutive state budgets.

"Educators across the commonwealth work hard each and every day to foster the academic and social growth of their students, and the staff at Bristol Township School District is no different," said Sec. Rivera. "While schools may have different plans and short-term goals, they all agree that their number one priority is the students. Traveling across the state meeting at schools in cities, suburbs, and rural towns has shown that no matter their location or financial standing, all schools are reaching for the same goal: student success."

The event included a roundtable discussion on the Wolf Administration's educational priorities, including investing in students and schools and developing a more holistic system of measurement through the replacement of the School Performance Profile (SPP) with a new measure of school success, called the Future Ready PA Index.

The existing SPP, which was first used in 2013, is heavily reliant on standardized test scores, which only mark student performance at a single point in time during the school year.

"Just as the lessons we teach students must be well-rounded and nuanced to be effective, so too must the ways we evaluate what they are learning," Sec. Rivera said. "By modifying our existing evaluation system and utilizing a more holistic measurement process, we will receive a more accurate and complete picture of student achievement, college and career readiness, and educator effectiveness."

During the SPP modification process, the Department of Education hosted more than 30 feedback sessions dedicated exclusively to revamping the accountability tool, bringing together a wide variety of stakeholders. Teachers, administrators, parents, students, policy makers, advocates, industry and higher education leaders all lent their expertise and insight to the process to ensure a broad cross section of perspectives were considered.

PDE's recommendations for the Future Ready PA Index retain several of the indicators from the current SPP; however the weighting of those indicators would be modified.

"Bristol Township School District was delighted that Secretary Rivera visited and presented vital information about the Department's recent initiatives," said Superintendent Dr. Melanie Gehrens. "The round table discussion gave the stakeholders a chance to share feedback and participate in robust conversations about important issues in education."

To date, the Schools That Teach tour has made stops at more than three dozen schools across Pennsylvania. A Google Map of all tour stops is available here.

MEDIA CONTACT: Nicole Reigelman, 717-783-9802                                

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Education