Benjamin Franklin School scored highest among Harrisburg’s elementary schools on an annual state assessment.
Most Harrisburg public schools continued to tread water for the past academic year, once again earning largely poor grades from the state.
District-wise, Harrisburg schools showed little improvement, but they also generally didn’t deteriorate further during the 2016-17 school year compared to recent years, according to the annual “School Performance Profile” released today by the state Department of Education.
“The ‘School Performance Profile’ scores released today provide school-level information to the public related to student achievement and progress,” said Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera.
Harrisburg High School attained an academic score of 44 out of 100 total points, identical to the prior year. The SciTech Campus showed more improvement, up to 76.2 points versus 73.2 last year and 61.2 the year before.
To determine academic scores, the state uses a variety of measures, including standardized tests such as the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone exams. The scores follow a general academic scoring model with 90 to 100 considered to be excellent and below 60 considered to be deficient.
Other schools in the 6,227-student district scored as follows:
Marshall Math Science Academy: 78.3
Benjamin Franklin School: 60.8
Melrose School: 58.2
Foose School: 53.3
Scott School: 52.7
Marshall Academy: 49.8
Camp Curtin Academy: 45.6
Downey School: 45.5
Rowland Academy: 42.5
The yearly assessment includes a wealth of other data, including graduation rates. In that regard, Harrisburg High School showed a slight improvement, with a graduation rate of 55.8 percent last year, compared to 53.9 percent in 2015-16 and 52.8 percent in 2014-15.
Rivera said that this will be the final time the state uses the current methodology and “report card” grading system to determine school-level academic performance. Next year, the state will transition to what it calls a “Future Ready PA” index, which will use a dashboard approach to present school-level data and will feature a broad range of indicators, such as English language acquisition, career readiness indicators, access to advanced coursework and chronic absenteeism, among others.
Kirsten Keys, the Harrisburg school district’s spokeswoman, declined immediate comment for this story.
