How Are Our Schools Doing?

State test scores show that more than one out of four 11th graders in the Pittsburgh Region (28.6%) can't read adequately, and two out of five (41.4%) can't do math properly. None of the 125 school districts in the 10-county region had 90% or more of their 11th graders proficient in math, and only three districts had 90% of their 11th graders proficient in reading. In over 100 school districts, 30% or more of the 11th graders were not proficient in either reading or math. In 39 districts, more than half weren't proficient.

The table below shows that if you grade school district performance the same way schools grade kids, no districts would get an "A," and most would get a "C," "D," or "F."

Some school districts perform significantly better than others at a lower cost, even with similar numbers of poor and disabled children. For example, about 20% of the 11th graders in both the Freedom Area School District in Beaver County and the Gateway School District in Monroeville are economically disadvantaged, but significantly fewer of the kids at Freedom are non-proficient (21% vs. 41% in math, and 20% vs. 28% in reading) and Freedom spends 27% less per child than Gateway.

Download the above table in spreadsheet form.