How did your school perform on the PSSAs? 2024 scores are out.

Pennsylvania’s latest standardized test results are out, and while students continued to make gains in math and science, English scores dropped again.

State education officials said the 2024 results released Tuesday from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and other tests showed overall improvement in student achievement. But the results are still below pre-pandemic levels.

Here’s what the scores show:

Just over 40% of students scored proficient or above on the math portion of the 2024 PSSAs, which are administered to grades 3 through 8. The 40.4% of students who met that proficiency benchmark grew by one percentage point, from 39.4% last year.

Similarly, the share of students proficient in science increased slightly to 65.8%, from 65.5%, last year.

Pennsylvania’s education secretary, Khalid Mumin, said in a statement that “once again, this year’s assessment results showed increased levels of participation and improvement across the Commonwealth.”

English scores, however, have not been increasing. For the second year in a row, scores slipped — with 53% of students testing proficient this year, down from 53.7% of students last year. Last year’s score also marked a decline, from 54.6% in 2022.

Before the pandemic, more than 60% of students were proficient in English on the 2019 PSSAs. The continued slide in English is in contrast to the trend in math and science scores, which are approaching their 2019 levels.

An education department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why English scores may be falling.

Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo, a clinical professor of literacy studies at Drexel University, said there’s a difference in how math and English language arts are taught that could be a factor in the diverging test scores trends. Math curriculum, she said, “tends to spiral” — students first learn to add or subtract two-digit numbers, and then move on to three and four digits. While teaching students that more-advanced calculation, a teacher can also reinforce how to add or subtract two digits for those who are struggling.

ELA curricula, in contrast, are “more of a skills ladder,” DeCarlo said. First graders may work on decoding words with short vowels like bus and slip, she said, and in second grade, move onto more complex skills “like decoding final stable syllables” — for instance, -tion.

That curriculum “doesn’t double back and review the first grade skills,” but is designed to move on to more complex skills and texts, she said. As a result, if some kids didn’t learn key skills during the pandemic, they might still be missing them.

But there could also be a non-pandemic factor, DeCarlo said, which is that literacy instruction has been undergoing a rethinking amid the science of reading movement that emphasizes more direct reading skills instruction. Schools have been adopting new curricula — including in Philadelphia, where some teachers say they were inadequately prepared — and DeCarlo predicted it would take a few years for improvements to show up in scores.

“These stagnant scores” may be more about instructional strategies, “and less about any COVID learning loss,” DeCarlo said.

» READ MORE: This Philly-area elementary school saw test scores plummet. Now it’s putting all its resources toward catching up.

The education department pointed to other improvements, saying that English learner growth and attainment grew from 29% last year to 31.7% this year, while regular attendance growth and attainment increased from 73.9% to 78.1%. It wasn’t immediately clear how those terms are defined.

With “new, innovative approaches” being used by Pennsylvania schools, Mumin said he was “confident that with each passing year, participation and achievement will continue to improve and give students new ways to chart their own course and succeed.”