It’s good to see that the CDT has some coverage of the PSSA scores this morning. I believe that the reporter, Ed Mahon, is still working through the data himself, so the story doesn’t quite convey the how SCASD’s standing among other districts in the state has changed. While our reading rankings the last few years remain high, among the top 10-20% of districts, our math rankings have fallen. Pennsylvania does PSSA testing at 7 grade levels; at 5 of these levels, in 2008-2009 SCASD’s ranking for percentage of students scoring “advanced” or “proficient” in math was the lowest it has ever been:
- 157 out of 500 (4th grade)
- 199 out of 500 (5th grade)
- 265 out of 500 (6th grade)
- 161 out of 500 (8th grade)
- 81 out of 500 (11th grade)
This downward trend began only a few years ago; our math rankings used to be consistently in the top 10-20%, as they have remained in reading. You can see all of the rankings graphed over the years in this post.
The Board keeps a list of 13 other districts and often refer to how SCASD compares within this “cohort” group. These are districts of similar size and similar demographics. For reading in 2008-2009, SCASD is generally in the top half of this group, but for math our rankings are:
- 8 out of 14 (3rd grade)
- 7 out of 14 (4th grade)
- 10 out of 14 (5th grade)
- 10 out of 14 (6th grade)
- 6 out of 14 (7th grade)
- 10 out of 14 (8th grade)
- 9 out of 14 (11th grade)
