School Sample - A list of schools I compared with Nazareth

As noted previously, based on the newly released PSSA test scores, Upper St. Clair was highest in each category I rated. The school was also rated tops by a western PA publication (read the article here).

I noted that Nazareth should look to Upper St. Clair to find ways to improve as a result of its success and Nazareth's disappointing standing in the ranking I did.

But Upper St. Clair was not the only school I used to compare. There were 20 schools in addition to Nazareth, of the same size based on student population taking the test.

The following schools were all considered. I've included in parenthesis how many categories a school scored better than Nazareth. The scoring was a hi-lo approach looking at the percent in math and reading at advanced level and the percent in the below basic level for each.

Scoring ahead of Nazareth:

• Upper St. Clair, Allegheny (4/4)
  
• Fox Chapel, Allegheny (4/4)
• North Hills, Allegheny (4/4)
• Owen J. Roberts, Chester (4/4)
• Cornwall-Lebanon, Lebanon (4/4)
• Cheltenham Township, Montgomery (3/4)
• Colonial, Montgomery (4/4)
• Upper Dublin, Montgomery (4/4)
• Wissahickon, Montgomery (4/4)
• Greater Latrobe, Westmoreland (4/4)
• Penn-Trafford, Westmoreland (4/4)

Scoring about even to Nazareth:

• Exeter Township, Berks (2/4 - all close split 2/2)
• Carlisle Area, Cumberland (1/4 - two categories close Nazareth ahead each)
• Warwick, Lancaster (1/4 - three categories close Nazareth ahead in all)
• Canon-McMillan, Washington (2/4, 1 tied)

Scoring clearly below Nazareth:

• Wyoming Valley West, Luzerne (0/4)
• Keystone Central, Clinton (0/4)
• Governor Mifflin, Berks (0/4)
• Woodland Hills, Allegheny (0/4)
• Gateway, Allegheny (0/4)

Again, my expectation was that Nazareth would have compared much better. I selected school size because in the Lehigh Valley it is a 'tweener, when it comes to size. Nazareth is not as big as the big schools, and it is much bigger than the small schools. I thought this comparison, across the state with schools of the same size, would have balanced out the issue of size and shown Nazareth to be fairly competitive academically. It didn't.