Fact Sheet
Pennsylvania Public Schools: Nation’s Report Card 2024
Summary
- Despite $4.1 billion in education funding increases over the last four years, Pennsylvania Public Schools did not rank in the top 10 for any category on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), or Nation’s Report Card.
- The growth of high-needs students is not a defining driver of Pennsylvania’s lackluster performance. Of the states that outpace us, nineteen have larger class sizes, twenty serve more English language learners, seventeen serve student populations where 15 percent or more have disabilities, and twelve serve student populations where 15 percent or more live in poverty.
- Less than half of Pennsylvania’s public school fourth-grade students hold proficient scores in both math and reading. For eighth graders, the NAEP results show 69 percent as not proficient in math, and an equal 69 percent cannot read at grade level.
- Moreover, NAEP results show Pennsylvania public schools have made no measurable improvement since 2003 to close achievement gaps of more than 25 points for Black and Hispanic students, Economically Disadvantaged students, or English Language Learners.
- These results raise many red flags given Pennsylvania public schools spent $21,985 per pupil in 2022–23 (latest available data)—the highest in state history and seventh-highest nationally—while serving the smallest number of students in over two decades.