BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Students at Lehigh Valley school districts and across the state are continuing a downward trend of performing below pre-pandemic levels on state standardized tests.
The 2022 scores for the Pennsylvania System of State Assessments, known as the PSSAs, are administered to students in grades three through eight to test proficiency in English language arts, math and science. The results show that English scores continued to decline for students in third through sixth grades. While English test scores for seventh and eighth graders ticked up from 2021 and Math scores were also slightly improved at all grade levels except for fifth grade, they were still below 2019 results.
- Scores on statewide tests were released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education
- Test scores continue to drop from 2019 levels across multiple subjects
- Scores vary from depending on school, district
Some students at schools in the Lehigh Valley performed better than others.
Southern Lehigh High School in the Southern Lehigh School District, and Springhouse Middle School and Fred J. Jaindl Elementary Schools in the Parkland School District had high proficiency rates on the English Language Arts exam, ranging from 84.2% to 82.2%.
Francis Raub, Harrison-Morton and Trexler middle schools in the Allentown School District had the lowest Math proficiency scores, ranging from 3.5% to 2.2%. Allentown high schools William Allen and Louis Dieruff, and Raub Middle School had the lowest proficiency on science tests, between 3.9% and 7.4%.
Requests for comment from officials at Allentown School District received no response.
Kelly Rosario, who is the Parkland School District's director of the office of teaching and learning, said she was proud of the district's students and staff.
"After several years of instability due to the pandemic, we are encouraged by the achievement and growth of the Parkland students," she said. "We worked hard to minimize learning loss by offering different modalities of learning and extra support for students who were struggling. We continue to monitor data and intervene to help students be successful."
Some Bethlehem schools also saw low proficiency scores, such as Broughal Middle School, which earned a 5.7% proficiency rate on the Math assessment.
Jack Silva, assistant superintendent and chief academic officer for the school district, said schools with higher student needs are struggling to perform as well as other schools on the exams.
“That’s a pattern of all state assessments that looks like is bearing out here,” he said.
Statewide, third graders scored 10 percentage points lower than they did in 2019: 52.3% in 2022, compared with 61.9% pre-pandemic. Fourth graders also scored about 10 percentage points down from their performance in 2019, earning 52.2% this year, compared with 63.6% in 2019. The gaps close to a few percentage points in later grades.
“Like states across the nation, we are not yet seeing test results at pre-pandemic levels. However, student performance is generally improving year-over-year and schools across Pennsylvania are working overtime to accelerate learning and meet students where they are at as we emerge from the pandemic,” said Eric Hagarty, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of Education.
The results don’t reflect the full scope of instruction students are receiving in the classroom across the commonwealth and he expects student performance to improve, Hagarty said.
The number of students who took the Keystone Exams was fewer this year than in 2019. Students take these exams at the end of the course, but it is not reported until 11th grade.
Silva says Bethlehem is looking forward to a year where there is a greater degree of normalcy and stability, noting the school closures from 2019 to 2022 due to the pandemic. He says the years of remote and hybrid learning were detrimental to student learning, and the emotional experiences of families added to that.
“You just can’t shrug off an increase in parental death. You just can’t shrug off losing of homes, you just can’t shrug off employment instability.”Jack Silva, BASD assistant superintendent and chief academic officer
“You just can’t shrug off an increase in parental death,” he said. “You just can’t shrug off losing of homes, you just can’t shrug off employment instability.”
Silva said they are focusing on reading and literacy to help students improve learning and skill development.
Reporter Olivia Marble contributed to this story.
