This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
The School District of Philadelphia released its latest batch of School Progress Reports (SPR) on Tuesday, honoring those schools that made the biggest jumps in 2015-16. During a ceremony at Olney Elementary School, a roster of local officials — including School Reform Commission Chair Joyce Wilkerson, Mayor Jim Kenney, and Superintendent William Hite — saluted schools that finished at the top of their class in the reports.
High honors went to Loesche Elementary School, McCall Elementary School, Girard Academic Music Program, and Franklin Town Charter High School, each of which had the best SPR for their respective grade bands.
Watson Comly School, Chester Arthur School, Academy for the Middle Years at Northwest, and Paul Robeson High School for Human Services earned the title of "most improved."
District officials also gave a shout-out to Olney Elementary School, which they said has shown consistent improvement in recent years.
Parents and community members can find the latest SPR scores for District and charter schools on the School District’s website.
Since its inception four years ago, the SPR has been the catch-all metric for determining which Philly schools are on the right track and which could be slated for an academic overhaul. SPR tabulates student achievement on standardized tests, year-over-year growth on standardized tests, and various school climate measurements to produce an overall score.
Schools are then grouped into one of four tiers: intervene (the lowest tier), watch, reinforce, and model (the highest tier).
Late last year, the School District identified 11 low-performing schools that will undergo major changes, with some potentially receiving new teachers and administrators. The criteria for selecting those 11 schools were based in part on SPR scores.
The District, however, also created SPR as a way to highlight success stories, and Tuesday’s ceremony served that purpose.