Girls Still Outperform Boys on Easton PSSAs

For the second year in a row, girls in the Easton Area School District performed better than boys on the PSSAs.

Students in grades three through eight, as well as high school juniors, take the test -- known as the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments -- each spring.

A review of records released last week found that 82.4 percent of the 2,241 female students who took the math test scored in the "advanced" or "proficient" categories, compared with 81.2 percent of the 2,302 male students.

The contrast in reading test results were a little more stark: 78.5 percent of female students reached the advanced/proficient category, compared to 69.1 percent of male students.

(Test results fall into four categories: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic. A school district has to have a certain percentage of students in the advanced or proficient category each year in order to have made their annual PSSA goal.)

Broken down by grade level, there were only two instances where boys outperformed girls: 

• 76.3 percent of fifth-grade boys had advanced/proficient math scores, compared with 71.4 percent of girls in that grade.
• In the eighth-grade math test, 88.9 percent of female students reached the advanced/proficent range, while their male classmates hit 89.5 percent.

This is the second year in a row where Easton's girls have done better than boys on the PSSAs. Last year's numbers were quite similar: 

• Female students, math: 80.9 percent.
• Male students: 80.6 percent.
• Female students, reading: 78 percent.
• Male students: 68.4 percent

This year, as last year, students in Easton did better overall than the state average. 

However, Easton students fell below the state's 2011/2012 Adequate Yearly Progress target for reading.

The state's goal was to have 81 percent of students performing at or above grade level, but Easton's kids reached only 73.8 percent.

The state's math target was 78 percent, while Easton students hit 82.2 percent.

Federal No Child Left Behind Guidelines require all students to reach 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014.