PSSA Monitoring
During the administration of the 2012 PSSA in March and April, schools/districts will be monitored in the following areas: (1) PSSA security and forms tracking, (2) assessment administration procedures, and (3) the use of accommodations for students with IEPs, for ELL students, and for others as appropriate. Additional information related to the PSSA monitoring is available below.
Pennsylvania System of School Assessment Test Security Procedures
Introduction
The security of state administered assessments is of the utmost importance in regard to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) assessment and accountability system. This document outlines the state’s expectations and procedures on test booklet security, test administration security, and the identification and reporting of test security violations. Breaches in test security must be quickly identified and reported to PDE. This document and its accompanying PSSA Test Security FAQ will explain to participants at various levels—school, district, and state—how to identify breaches in test security and what actions should be taken in response to those breaches.
Test Booklet Security
District assessment coordinators, administrators, and teachers are responsible for the security of the assessment materials from the time the district receives them to the time they are packed and shipped back to the contractor for scoring. All testing materials must be returned to the school test coordinator at the end of each day of testing and locked in a secure area with access given to authorized personnel only. Test Booklets must never be taken home, either by a student or a staff member. The following is a list of cautions to remember:
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Assessment materials must not be in any way reproduced, in whole or in part (including paraphrasing).
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No one may have test booklets without authorization from the district assessment coordinator.
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Teachers or other staff members may not show any items in the test booklets to anyone not administering the assessment.
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Teachers may not use any specific items in the secure booklets to help prepare the students for the assessment.
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Test administrators may not return any test booklet to any student after it has been turned in except in the following cases:
Test Administration Security
Building administrators and/or district assessment coordinators are to review the testing procedures with the teachers and other staff members who will be administering the assessment. During the administration of the assessment, the following are allowable:
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Teachers and other staff members who are administering the test may give words of encouragement and general instructions to the students.
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Teachers and other staff members may answer questions concerning ONLY the directions for each test session.
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Teachers and other staff members may give accommodations or modifications that are consistent with the student’s IEP, 504, or LEP Plan and that are used in the normal delivery of instruction with the exception of those indicated as not allowable in the Accommodations Guidelines.
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Breaks may be given at the discretion of the district as long as the length of the break does not affect the integrity of the assessment.
During the administering of the assessment, the rules listed below must be adhered to:
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During the testing period, teachers and other staff may not assist any student with any item in any way that would aid the student in answering the question, including reviewing the students’ rough drafts of open-ended items.
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Teachers and other staff may not encourage any student to edit their responses in any way.
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Do not leave any student alone while taking the assessment.
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Do not allow any student to take a test booklet and/or answer document out of the testing area without proper supervision.
Breaches in Test Security
The Test Security Procedure for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) establishes guidelines for dealing with breaches in test security. Breaches may include student impropriety, test violations, educator misconduct, or the mishandling of test materials. In order to maintain the integrity of the test, there must be strict adherence to the rules and procedures for administering the test.
The following are examples that illustrate characteristics of possible breaches in the security of the PSSA:
Student Impropriety
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Word-for-word duplication or partial duplication of a response from a student.
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Use of the same incorrect formula to come to the same incorrect answer from multiple students.
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Use of the same correct formula to come to the same incorrect answer from multiple students.
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Use of materials other than those that are provided during the administration of the assessment.
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Use of electronic devices with beaming, imaging, or text messaging capabilities.
Educator Misconduct
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School personnel transcribe student’s response and student errors have been corrected. Please note that transcription by a proctor is a permissible accommodation, but the response must be transcribed without editing by the proctor.
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Two obviously different handwritings in the same response. Exceptions are transcription or dictation to a proctor as an accommodation. This accommodation must be recorded in the student answer booklet.
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Word-for-word duplication or partial duplication of responses with the same handwriting.
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Student states in answer that the teacher provided all or some of the answer.
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Student indicates bubbles were filled in when test was first handed out to the students.
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Student indicates that the teacher pointed out correct and/or incorrect answers.
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Procedure for solving problem is written at top of response space in a different handwriting.
Reporting and Investigating Test Security Violations
A. Any identification or suspected violation of defined testing procedures must be reported immediately. If a student suspects a breach in test security, the student should report the alleged incident to a teacher or administrator. If a teacher, parent, assessment administrator, or school administrator suspects a breach in test security, he or she should report the alleged incident in writing to the district’s superintendent or contact PDE’s Division of Assessment.
B. In the case of a test contractor suspecting a breach in test security, the suspected tests should be “flagged.” The contractor’s scoring director and project manager will then review the flagged tests and determine whether a test security breach has occurred. The test contractor should immediately notify PDE’s Division of Assessment of any test security breach and send them a summary file of the flagged student work.
Please note that neither the Department of Education nor the readers for the contractor have access to individual student identification information. Student identification is separated from the student response sheets prior to scoring and is not available to anyone other than the test contractor’s project manager.
The test contractor will also send copies of the flagged papers to the appropriate school district’s superintendent along with two letters through registered mail. The first letter should indicate the procedure used in identifying the flagged work. The second letter will instruct the superintendent, or designee, to investigate the concerns and complete a report on the findings and the actions taken.
C. As soon as a suspected test security breach has been verified either by the test contractor or PDE, a district superintendent, or designee of the investigation, will have 45 days to complete a report. The report will be sent to PDE’s Division of Assessment indicating the following:
· The details of the investigation
· The findings
· The action taken by the school, administrators, and/or district, if any
Upon completion of the report, the superintendent should return any student answer documents involved in the incident to the contractor with the other student answer documents.
Consequences of Test Security Violations
School districts are responsible for conducting the investigation and taking appropriate actions in response to breaches in test security. PDE may, at the discretion of the Division of Assessment, initiate a formal educator misconduct investigation that may result in disciplinary action under 24 P.S. §§ 2070.1a through 2070.18a of the School Laws. In addition, PDE may, at the discretion of the Secretary of Education, invalidate any or all test scores involved in the investigation and/or retest the students. Invalidation will not impact a district’s participation rate for No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The district will receive credit as if a student had earned the lowest valid score.
