How Philly’s charter schools stack up on state performance measure

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education last week released its evaluation of the academic progress of the state’s public schools.

The School Performance Profile index is composed mainly of standardized test score results, but also takes into account attendance, graduation rates, and student improvement.

Last week, Newsworks published a story that analyzed overall state trends, as well as those in the Philadelphia School District.

Below is an analysis of Philadelphia’s 86 brick-and-mortar charter schools.

The average SPP score among all Philadelphia charters for 2013-14 is 64.1– dipping slightly from last year’s average SPP of 66.

(The District’s 214 schools have an average SPP score of 56.8 – again dipping slightly from last year’s average SPP of 57.5.)

Forty-two percent of the city’s charters saw their SPP scores increase compared to last year, while 58 percent saw decreases.

These trends are roughly on par with the trajectory of the District’s schools.

Here are the 10 charter schools that saw the greatest gains and declines in SPP scores this year.


Mastery’s Simon Gratz, a Renaissance charter that serves all children within a defined neighborhood boundary, made the largest jump of any public school in the city — 21 points.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks