New Pa. standardized test scores show students haven’t rebounded since the pandemic

Pennsylvania students are continuing to perform worse on standardized tests than before the pandemic, according to data released Monday, marking the second year in a row of diminished scores and providing another window into the toll on student learning.

Scores on the 2022 Pennsylvania System of State Assessments — administered to students in grades three through eight and known as the PSSAs — continued to slide in English for third through sixth graders. While English scores for seventh and eighth graders showed an uptick in 2022, as did math scores at most grade levels, the results still fell below what they had been in 2019, the last test administered before the pandemic.

“Like states across the nation, we are not yet seeing test results at pre-pandemic levels. However, student performance is generally improving year-over-year and schools across Pennsylvania are working overtime to accelerate learning and meet students where they are at as we emerge from the pandemic,” acting Secretary of Education Eric Hagarty said in a statement.

The findings provide the latest picture of academic fallout from the disruption wrought by the pandemic, following the release last month of national standardized test scores that showed a steep dip in student performance since 2019. Pennsylvania and New Jersey students posted slightly greater than average declines on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, administered between January and March 2022.

On the PSSAs — which were administered during the 2021-22 school year this spring — English language arts scores fell across several grades and sank lower compared to pre-pandemic results. Among third graders, 52.3% scored proficient or above, down from 61.9% in 2019; fourth graders, 52.2%, down from 63.6%; fifth graders, 53.6%, down from 58.5%; and sixth graders, 56.1%, down from 63%.

While this year’s ELA scores increased from 2021 among seventh and eighth graders, scores were still down compared to pre-pandemic: 57.2% for seventh graders in 2022 compared to 60.4% in 2019, and 55.6% for eighth graders, compared to 57.9%.

That was also true for PSSA math scores, which increased across the board — with the exception of fifth grade — from 2021, but didn’t match 2019 levels. (Among third graders, for instance, math scores increased from 47.3% in 2021 to 47.7% in 2022, but were below 2019′s 56%.)

Jonathan Supovitz, a professor of leadership and policy at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, said he wasn’t surprised by the continuation of lower scores. He noted that a current fifth grader, for instance, may have had multiple years of “very thin schooling.”

“Education is a cumulative experience,” he said. “Just because I covered the year doesn’t mean I have the foundation I would have had in previous years.”

Hagerty said the assessments “show point-in-time data that does not reflect the full scope of learning happening in classrooms across the commonwealth, and we expect student performance will continue to improve as students and educators proceed with a more normalized, uninterrupted year of in-person learning.”

The results were expected to mark a more typical return to standardized testing in the wake of the pandemic. Testing was canceled in 2020, and while it returned in 2021, significantly fewer students than usual participated: Pennsylvania had allowed school districts to delay the assessments, but some continued to hold them in spring 2021, when many students were still learning remotely.

For that reason, Pennsylvania officials had downplayed the drops in 2021, calling the results an incomplete picture.

Education Department officials didn’t comment Monday on this year’s participation rates. According to the department’s website, about 700,000 students took the English and math PSSAs in 2022, up from just 540,000 in 2021. The number was lower than the roughly 748,000 who took the tests in 2019, but Supovitz called it a “stabilizing sample.”

The pool of Keystone Exam test takers was also smaller this year than in 2019. Literature and biology scores on the exams, reported for 11th graders, were both down compared to pre-pandemic, though the biggest drop, in biology — from 63.2% proficient in 2019 to 41.9% in 2022 — reflected 55,000 fewer tests. (The Keystone exams are administered at the end of a course, but reported only when the test taker is in 11th grade. That means a test taken in one year might not be reflected until subsequent years. Last year, when there were also drops in the number of Keystone results, officials pointed to the cancellation of testing in 2020 as a factor.)

Algebra Keystone scores increased from 2019, up from 63.3% proficient to 63.9%. But only half as many test results — 59,000 — were released Monday compared to 2019.