Warren County students fared better on 2024 PSSA math tests than they did in 2023 – though district wide proficiency rates in math are lower than in English language arts and science.

As a county, math proficiency rates increased from 31% in 2023 to 32.4% in 2024, a gain of 1.4%. The county logged proficiency decreases of 4.9% in math and 8.3% in science from 2023 to 2024.

But, math proficiency is 7.4% lower than ELA proficiency for county students and 27% lower for math compared to science proficiency.

Compared year over year, proficiency rates were 40% in math in 2024 for Warren County third graders (+1%), 39.6% in fourth grade (-.8%), 42% in fifth grade (+3.8%), 29.7% for sixth graders (+2.2%), 24.8% for seventh graders (-1.4%) and 19.5% for eighth graders (+2.5%). As a whole, proficiency for third through eighth graders on the 2024 PSSA math tests was 32.4% in 2024, a 1.4% increase from 2023.

By and large, Eisenhower and Youngsville saw the biggest building-wide gains on the 2024 math PSSA tests. Eisenhower ‘s elementary school students’ proficiency rates increased 8.9% to 62.1% while middle school proficiency rates increased 6.9% to 31.9% from 2023 to 2024. Youngsville elementary school students saw proficiency rates increase 16.3% year over year to 45.7% in 2024, though Youngsville’s middle school students saw proficiency decrease 2.9% to 22.1% in 2024. Youngsville elementary saw two of the biggest proficiency gains in the county in its third grade class (+15.7%) and fifth grade class (+21.2%) though its fourth grade class saw proficiency decrease 18.7%. Eisenhower saw gains of 8% among its third graders, 23.1% in fourth grade, 7% in sixth grade and 13% in eighth grade, with decreases of 3.2% in fifth graders and 1.6% in seventh graders.

Sheffield saw proficiency decrease for elementary school students by 2.5% to 29.2% in 2024 but increase .2% to 21.3% for middle school students. While direct comparisons are difficult for Beaty-Warren and the Warren Area Elementary Center because fifth graders were classified differently by the state Education Department from one year to the next, Beat-Warren’s proficiency rates decreased .7% to 27.7% in 2024 according to the state while Warren Area Elementary’s proficiency rates decreased 7% to 30.8% in 2024. Tidioute Community Charter School saw its building-wide proficiency rates decrease 6.7% to 26.9% in 2024.

The same discrepancy found in the district’s science results among students classified as economically disadvantaged reappears in PSSA results for both math and English language arts. ELA results – though the disparities are greater for math and ELA than for science, which saw a 9.8% decrease in proficiency for fourth graders and an 8.5% gap in proficiency for eighth graders.

ELA proficiency gaps decreased 10.4% districtwide on the English language arts PSSA tests, with decreased proficiency of 7.3% in third graders, 10.8% in fourth graders, 11.4% among fifth graders, 14.8% among sixth graders, 5.7% among seventh graders and 12% among eighth graders. Proficiency rates were 10.6% lower districtwide on the math PSSA testing, with a 9.9% gap in third grade classrooms, a 12.4% gap for fourth graders, an 11.3% gap for fifth graders, a 14.9% gap for sixth grade classrooms, a 7.7% decrease for seventh grade classrooms and an 8.9% decrease for eighth graders.