This Philadelphia Education Research Consortium (PERC) study shines a spotlight on ELs in 7th and 8th grade, describing the diversity of home languages spoken, countries and regions of birth, and duration of EL status across the population of English Learners in the years leading up to their transition to high school.
From 2014-15 to 2022-23, English Learner (EL) enrollment in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) increased both in number of students and as a percentage of the total student population. With this growth, the diversity of home languages spoken in SDP students’ households also increased. The analyses conducted for this brief aim to summarize the growth patterns of EL enrollment and home language diversity in SDP over time.
In November 2022, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) opened a public survey for stakeholders to provide input on issues related to the Academic Calendar for 2023-24 and 2024-25. This brief summarizes responses to the 3,983 surveys received.
The ACCESS assessment is administered to English Learners (ELs) annually each winter to measure their progress toward English proficiency. Star Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) are a suite of assessments administered 3-4 times during the school year to students in grades K-12 that measure students’ reading and math skills, monitor achievement and growth, and track how well students understand skills aligned to state and Common Core standards. Although some ELs are excused from participation in Star, most take Star Reading and Math. This report examines EL performance on the ACCESS and EL performance on Star within the context of ACCESS performance.
The School District of Philadelphia’s Board of Education established Goals and Guardrails that outline achievement goals through the 2025-26 school year. Goals 1 and 3 of this framework aim to increase the percentage of students in grades 3-8 scoring Proficient or Advanced on the PSSA ELA and PSSA Math each year, respectively. Star Reading and Star Math results are used as “Leading Indicators” to track progress toward these goals. This report examines the statistical relationship between Star performance and PSSA performance in 2021-22.
This brief complements the 2021-22 four-year graduation brief by presenting the 2021-22 outcomes for students at District and Alternative schools who did not graduate from high school in four years.
Through Listening and Learning sessions held from February to May 2023, we sought to better understand the challenges and barriers that prevent students from attending school on time every day. This slide deck presents the findings from sessions with school leaders and students.
Attendance is important for positive educational outcomes. Research has found that high attendance is associated with reading at or above a student’s grade level, scoring at or above grade level in math, and being prepared for college and career. This brief uses attendance data across all students enrolled in District schools, including alternative programs, to identify trends in student attendance from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
Food insecurity directly impacts physical health and is associated with adverse developmental, behavioral, and social-emotional outcomes. This brief describes the prevalence of food insecurity among SDP households that responded to the District-Wide Survey (DWS) in 2021-22 and examines the differences in food insecurity rates across different student demographic groups and schools.
This report continues a series of publications examining the School District of Philadelphia’s (SDP) 2021-22 school selection process (SSP), and summarizes the last phase of the school selection process with a specific focus on high school enrollment results for 9th grade students in Fall 2022.