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The annual Philly School Experience Survey (PSES) is one of the best tools we have for monitoring conditions in Philadelphia public schools. This deck summarizes the 2022-23 survey results for District and alternative schools, highlighting system-level trends across the six core survey topics.
During the 2017-18 school year, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) developed and launched a new metric to monitor the success of first-time 9th graders. The study described in this brief revisits SDP’s 9th Grade On-Track metric to examine whether the relationship between 9GOT and on-time graduation remains strong for more recent cohorts of students.
In the fall of 2021, the School District of Philadelphia administered the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to 1,351 randomly selected high school students from 30 District schools. This report highlights statistically weighted results from the 2021 Philadelphia YRBS, which means that the results are considered representative of high school students in the entire District.
On November 8, 2023 PDE published the results of the state standardized tests administered in the 2022-23 school year. Statewide results show mixed results for ELA, with improvement from 2022 for 3rd grade but declines for 7th and 8th grades. PSSA math and science scores improved over 2022 for all grades across Pennsylvania. Although proficiency rates for SDP students are lower than statewide rates, SDP students’ year-over-year results align with the statewide results; we see overall signs of post-pandemic improvement, especially in grades 3-8 math and science.
Since the 2021-22 school year, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) has administered Star assessments as a universal screener and progress monitoring tool for all grades, K-12. This report summarizes findings on participation, performance, and growth across Fall and Spring Star testing windows in 2022-23, with comparisons to 2021-22 outcomes and details on performance of different student groups. A report addendum extends the analyses to focus on the relationship between attendance and student performance on Star assessments.
The 2022-23 Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative in SDP consisted of a series of professional development opportunities for K-12 educators across 29 schools. This report summarizes the results of a year-long implementation evaluation of the QTEL initiative.
This Philadelphia Education Research Consortium (PERC) study shines a spotlight on ELs in 7th and 8th grade, describing the diversity of home languages spoken, countries and regions of birth, and duration of EL status across the population of English Learners in the years leading up to their transition to high school.
From 2014-15 to 2022-23, English Learner (EL) enrollment in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) increased both in number of students and as a percentage of the total student population. With this growth, the diversity of home languages spoken in SDP students’ households also increased. The analyses conducted for this brief aim to summarize the growth patterns of EL enrollment and home language diversity in SDP over time.
In November 2022, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) opened a public survey for stakeholders to provide input on issues related to the Academic Calendar for 2023-24 and 2024-25. This brief summarizes responses to the 3,983 surveys received.
The ACCESS assessment is administered to English Learners (ELs) annually each winter to measure their progress toward English proficiency. Star Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) are a suite of assessments administered 3-4 times during the school year to students in grades K-12 that measure students’ reading and math skills, monitor achievement and growth, and track how well students understand skills aligned to state and Common Core standards. Although some ELs are excused from participation in Star, most take Star Reading and Math. This report examines EL performance on the ACCESS and EL performance on Star within the context of ACCESS performance.