Let’s stand with our local educators

By Jeremy Weber

Over the past few weeks, The Pittsburg Gazette has reported the fact that Pittsburg ISD was included on the latest PEG (Public Education Grant) list from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). For those of you who are confused by this, you are certainly not alone.
Inclusion on this list of “underperforming” schools means that parents have the option to transfer their children to another school without penalty.
Due to new state benchmarks, the number of Texas public schools included on this list rose from 456 in 2012 to 892 in 2013.
Essentially, this means that 436 schools (including Pittsburg)that were doing just fine a year ago are suddenly deemed unacceptable.
So, what happened? Did test scores drop drastically? Not at all.
Pittsburg ISD’s state test scores changed very little from 2012 to 2013. The difference was not in the school’s performance, but in the way the state evaluates them.
New accountability measures look at student improvement rather than just overall passing rates. This is where Pittsburg ISD fell short.
The high school campus needed 17% improvement and it got 16% - missing the mark by a mere 1%. The elementary school was in the same boat, only missing the new standard by 2%.
The problem with the PEG list is that it doesn’t distinguish between the schools that have been consistently underperforming for years from those that fell short on one small measure.
 

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