Audit: District must do more for its students
Report focuses on improvements that could help vulnerable majority
The Allentown School District needs to better allocate resources to help its most vulnerable students, including its English language learners and Hispanic students, a study says.
At Thursday’s school board meeting, the district released the results of a curriculum audit started last spring. The district, under Superintendent Thomas Parker, sought the $96,500 analysis to help identify areas it needed to improve in.
Among the findings:
While Hispanic students are the largest demographic, only a small percentage of those students pass the state assessments. The gap between white students and Hispanic and black students ranged from more than 10 points on high school state exams to more than 15 points on K-8 state tests.
The district’s program for English language learners is inadequate to eliminate the differences in achievement among student groups. Staffing is not enough to meet the needs of the district’s growing population of English language learners, and program implementation is not consistent.
Student assignments and samples of student work
insufficient alignment with state standards to be academically successful.
Students perform below the
state averages on state assessments. Student achievement on standardized tests has not improved but has generally regressed.
Hispanic, black, male and low-income students were overrepresented in programs for academically disadvantaged
students.
The audit noted that the Allentown School District, with a student population that is 90 percent low-income and 88 percent minority, has struggled academically compared with its neighboring districts and state averages. Almost 15 percent of the district's 17,000 students are English language learners. The district has already started allocating more resources to these at-risk students.
Allentown has consistently had the lowest scores on the state's standardized tests in the Lehigh Valley. The district's high school graduation rates are well below the state average of 86.6 percent, with Allen High at 67.3 percent and Dieruff at 76.7 percent.
“Without significant and coordinated interventions, most students in the Allentown School District will never catch up with their grade level peers in other school districts or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” the audit stated.
The district has a number of successes, Parker said, but the audit's aim was to identify chalshowed
lenges. Parker, a parent of a district student, told the board it was “tough to hear” the results, but it needed to be done.
"We're in the gym and we're working to get a six-pack, but if we have a drawer full of Twinkies that we eat every day, we're not going to see the six-pack," Parker said.
Before the audit discussion, the board held public comment.
“Some things in this are pretty disturbing,” Allentown resident Chris Woods said of the audit.
Conducted by education group Phi Delta Kappa, the audit measured five areas: governance and control; direction and learner expectations; connectivity and consistency; assessment and feedback; and productivity and efficiency.
The audit presentation was led by Zollie Stevenson of Phi Delta Kappa. He said he expects it's going to take three to five years to make the fixes needed.
“This is a discrepancy audit,” he told the board. “We're not telling you anything you're doing well. We're telling you the things you can improve.”
Among the audit's recommendations for the district were:
Adopt a board policy that focuses efforts toward improved student achievement.
Develop and implement a comprehensive policy framework that directs a sound system of curriculum management and control.
Develop and implement a comprehensive curriculum management system to provide direction districtwide for the design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of curriculum.
Prioritize equity in every policy, plan and aspect of teaching and learning.
After the presentation, district administrators said they are working toward Phi Delta Kappa's recommendation, including improving the academic success for its minority population. The full audit will be available on the district's website.
Among the district's first priorities are focusing on literacy and math curriculum developing instructional framework, and improving English language learner program design and staffing model.
The district hired Phi Delta Kappa in March to conduct the curriculum audit, using a grant from the state Department of Education to pay for it.
Phi Delta Kappa started its audit in the spring and concluded in the fall. The group visited 262 classrooms across the district's 25 academic buildings and interviewed teachers, students and parents. Auditors also examined documents such as budgets, curriculum guides and board policies.
This is the second critical area that Parker, in his second year with the district, has identified in his Strategic Framework. The first was a fiscal analysis.
In October, the school board approved a plan to have the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 do a systemic overhaul of the Allentown School District's business office. The district is looking to pay the IU $400,000 to $875,000 annually.