Public, Charter Schools In Philly See Major Improvements: Report

PHILADELPHIA — It's been four consecutive years of improvement in School District of Philadelphia schools, as well as charter schools in the city, according to a new school progress report.

Results released today from the 2018-2019 School Progress Report (SPR) show that the average Overall SPR score for schools citywide increased 11 points from 33 percent in 2014 to 2015, when the district implemented its Action Plan 3.0, to 44 percent in 2018 to 2019.

Since 2014-2015, 74 percent of district-led and charter schools — 223 schools total — increased their Overall SPR Score, and 44 percent of schools — 134 — increased their tier.

Fifty schools were honored at today’s event for significant and multi-year progress on the latest SPR. Schools were honored for making three and four years of improvement on their Overall SPR Score, improving two or more tiers, having the highest four-year improvement Overall and in specific domains, and having the highest year-over-year improvement Overall and in specific domains.

Penn Alexander School celebrated the highest Overall SPR Score from 2018-2019, along with three years of improvement.

Some additional highlights are:

• Schools are making multi-year improvements: 45 schools (28 percent) increased their Overall SPR Score two years in a row; 27 schools (14 percent) increased the score three years in a row; and 16 schools (5 percent) increased the score four years in a row;
• Forty-one schools (13 percent) moved into the highest tiers, Reinforce or Model, since 2017-2018;
• Since 2014-2015, the number of schools in the lowest tier, Intervene, has been reduced by half, from 112 schools to 56 schools, and the number of students in these schools has decreased from almost 69,000 to 31,000 students; and
• Also since 2014-2015, the number of schools in the highest tiers, Reinforce and Model, has more than doubled from 61 to 127 schools, and the number of students has increased from 40,000 to 80,000 students.

The SPR is the District’s primary tool to measure progress towards the Action Plan 3.0 anchor goals on grade-level literacy and college and career readiness. Now in its seventh year, the SPR evaluates schools in multiple areas, including student achievement, student progress, school climate, and for high schools, college and career readiness. It is a transparent, actionable way to gauge the progress and achievement of a school.

Schools across the city also made improvements in the individual domains used to calculate SPR scores, which also matter greatly to student success.

Since 2014-2015, the following percentage of schools have increased in each domain: 58 percent, in Achievement; 67 percent, in Progress; 82 percent, in Climate; and 60 percent of schools serving grades nine through 12, in College and Career Readiness.

In addition, several measures for student success have improved since 2014-2015, including:

• 93 percent of District students have zero out-of-school suspensions, up four points;
• 47 percent of District students are attending 95 percent of days or more, up eight points; and
• For the first time since 2014-2015, 50 percent of schools had a score over 60 percent (Reinforce) for the Climate domain.