PBT School Rankings Released

The Pittsburgh Business Times has released its annual school rankings (read the release here) and the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia suburbs dominate the top-tier.

According to the release, "the Pittsburgh Business Times uses its formula to rank every district in the state based on three years of PSSA (Pennsylvania System of Student Assessment) test scores."

The PSSA tests taken in the spring of 2007 would most likely not be included in this listing as they have not been released to the best of my knowledge and the report was released mid-May meaning they would have needed some time to prepare the numbers/rankings.

498 out of 500 districts were rated (two were not included because they did not have a high school and therefore a comparison couldn't be made with those that did).

Allegheny County had three of the top four (and six in the top 20) including top ranked Upper St. Clair. Chester County outside Philadelphia had two in the top six (and three in the top 20), and Bucks had three in the top 20.

The Lehigh Valley, Northampton and Lehigh Counties, were led by Parkland in 30th (see a list of all Valley schools below) and five schools were in the top 15% (75th or better). I think if you had to label these schools, they'd be the best in the area based on these results.

Two schools, of which Nazareth was one (ranked 144th), were ranked at the bottom of the top third (call it 'above-average), three were ranked right in the middle (from 227-264 - 'average'), and the remaining seven districts were in the bottom 40% (from 298-483 - 'below average').

According to these results it would seem that Nazareth has areas of improvement that can be made and it will be interesting to see how the new results will impact the ranking next year - for better or worse.

There had been some discussion of un-blocking Math, which would be a step in the right direction, though probably the better step would be getting off block scheduling all together (Parkland does have a traditional 50 minute or so bell schedule, not sure of the others at the top) as this fad doesn't seem to have any demonstrated benefits.

Again, maybe these rankings will prompt some discussion at the Board meeting or in the election regarding what can be done to improve the quality of education and get Nazareth into the 'best in the area' group of schools and move us further away from the 'average' ones.

Lehigh Valley Rankings (out of 500 districts and 498 ranked, let me know if I missed anyone as I had to scroll through all 500):

1. Parkland - 30
2. Southern Lehigh - 61
3. Salisbury - 67
   
4. Saucon Valley - 68
5. East Penn (Emmaus) - 71
6. Northwestern Lehigh - 138
   
7. Nazareth - 144
8. Pen Argyl - 227
9. Catasauqua - 239
10. Whitehall-Coplay - 264
11. Northampton - 298
12. Wilson - 329
13. Northern Lehigh - 343
14. Bethlehem - 354
15. Bangor - 381
16. Easton - 397
17. Allentown - 483