PSSA - Grade 4 math test scores by proficiency level in Pennsylvania
Why This Indicator Matters
PSSA - Grade 4 math test scores by proficiency level
Definitions:
The percent of fourth grade students who took the math PSSA (Pennsylvania System
of School Assessment) test for each district, charter school or
technical school grouped by proficiency level.
Beginning 2012-13, PSSA tests were administered to only grades 3 - 8. Scores are not available for 2013-14.
In 2014-15, there were changes to the reading, writing and math PSSAs to
reflect that these tests are now aligned to the Pennsylvania Common
Core Standards. Implementing the stronger academic standards and
measuring how well students are doing on the more challenging PSSA tests
resulted in an initial decline in test scores when they were released.
This drop in scores was not unexpected and should not be interpreted as a
decline in student learning or teacher performance. It simply means
Pennsylvania is recalibrating expectations and raising the bar for
student achievement to ensure our kids are on a pathway to graduate from
high school post-secondary and workforce ready.
Data Source:
Pennsylvania Department of Education, Assessment and Accountability
Footnotes:
LNE = Low Number Event. Statistics (rates, ratios, percents) are not calculated and displayed for counts less than 10 (or less than 3 for Bayesian/Nearest Neighbor rates).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, statewide PSSA & Keystone assessments were cancelled for the 2019-2020 school year. For the 2020-2021 school year, Pennsylvania, like many states across the nation, afforded school entities the option to administer assessments at any time between the traditional spring window and the following fall to allow for flexibility as schools navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the test results will not be used for educator evaluations and the variability in testing periods, sharply reduced student participation rates, and other factors make comparisons between school entities and across school years improper. Given these circumstances, the results should not be viewed as a complete, representative sample of all students in the commonwealth and will not be available.