Moon and Montour: Which School District Made the PSSA Grade?

Test scores for the latest Pennsylvania System of School Assessments are on track at both the Moon Area and Montour school districts. 

The neighboring districts both earned adequate yearly progress designations district-wide on the state exams. 

Adequate yearly progress is the standard designation indicating that a school district is making sufficient progress toward reaching 100 percent proficiency on the tests. 

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, all school districts much reach a 100 percent proficiency rate in reading and math on state assessments by 2014.  

In Moon, Hyde Elementary scored below target levels in reading performance, but still made the AYP designation through the "safe harbor target." 

Meeting AYP by the safe harbor target indicates the school saw an improvement in scores—Hyde reduced the number of students who scored below proficient by at least ten percent from the previous year, said Kim Prevost, assistant director of curriculum at Moon. 

Moon Area High School, meanwhile, scored 80.7 percent in reading performance, just below the goal of 81 percent. The high school still earned AYP status because the score was within the range of sampling error and was statistically indistinguishable from the goal.

The high school also scored below target in math, at 75.2 percent versus a goal of 78 percent, but still reached AYP, as the score fell within the sampling error.

Percentage of Moon Area students who scored at the advanced and proficient level (confidence interval controls for sampling error): 

Math

Performance: 

Goal: 78 percent 

89.8 percent

Performance: 

Goal: 81 percent

Christopher Stone, director of curriculum at the Montour School District, said the David E. Williams Middle School earned its highest PSSA math scores in 10 years, with more than 90 percent of students scoring at either advanced or proficient levels in math. 

Each building in the Montour School District, including Burkett, Forest Grove and the former Ingram elementary, in addition to the middle and high schools, reached AYP status on the exams.

The high school scored below target in reading and math, but still reached AYP by the confidence interval.  

Percentage of Montour students who scored at the advanced or proficient level (confidence interval controls for sampling error): 

Grades

3-5

Grades

6-8

Grades

9-12

Performance Goal:

78 percent

74 percent

(confidence interval)

Performance Goal:

 81 percent

79 percent

(confidence interval)

Across the state, more than 200 districts failed to reach AYP status on the exams, including 10 in Allegheny County: Duquesne, McKeesport Area, Sto-Rox, Bethel Park, Clairton, Keystone Oaks, Pittsburgh, Steel Valley, West Mifflin Area and North Hills.