York City School District: Academic Performance

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York City Schools Among Lowest Performing in Pennsylvania

  • York City SD ranked 499 out of 500 districts on the Department of Education’s 2012-13 State Performance Profile (SPP), with a score of 46.5.
    • The state considers 70 to be a passing score.
  • William Penn Senior High School—the primary public high school in the district—was one of the bottom 15 percent of schools in the state.
    • Average Math SAT: 381
    • Average Reading SAT: 368
  • Preliminary results indicate most city schools saw declining scores in 2013-14.

Charters Outperform District Schools

  • The three charter schools operating in York City averaged a 54.7 on the SPP compared to 46.5 for district schools.
  • New Hope Academy Charter School, which was forced to shut down after 2013 in part for academic performance, performed better than than 4 of 7 district schools with SPP scores.

    York SPP

PSSA Results Lag Behind Statewide Averages

    • York students lag behind both statewide and economically disadvantaged PSSA scores.
    • In 2012, more than twice as many York students performed ‘below basic’ in math than the statewide average.
    • Nearly three times as many York students performed ‘below basic’ in reading than the statewide average.
York City PSSA Results 2012 (Percentage)
York City SD Statewide Economically Disadvantaged, State
Advanced or Proficient, Math 53.1 75.6 61.6
Advanced or Proficient, Reading 41.5 72.0 55.4
Below Basic, Math 25.7 11.1 19.0
Below Basic, Reading 35.8 13.7 24.3
  • York City saw little to no improvement in PSSA scores between 2008 and 2012.

York PSSA

Spending per Student has Substantially Increased over the Last Decade

York Spending

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