Hanover Public School District - Academic Achievement

Academic Achievement

In July 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) released a report identifying one school in Hanover Public School District schools was among the lowest achieving schools for reading and mathematics in 2011. Hanover High School is among the 15% lowest achieving schools in the Commonwealth. York City School District was the only other York County public school district on the 2012 low achievement list. Parents and students may be eligible for scholarships to transfer to another public or nonpublic school through the state's Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program passed in June 2012. The scholarships are limited to those students whose family's income is less than $60,000 annually, with another $12,000 allowed per dependent. Maximum scholarship award is $8,500, with special education students receiving up to $15,000 for a year's tuition. Parents pay any difference between the scholarship amount and the receiving school's tuition rate. Students may seek admission to neighboring public school districts. Each year the PDE publishes the tuition rate for each individual public school district. Fifty three public schools in Allegheny County are among the lowest achieving schools in 2011. According to the report, parents in 414 public schools (74 school districts) were offered access to these scholarships. For the 2012-13 school year, seven public school districts in Pennsylvania had all of their schools placed on the list including: Sto-Rox School District, Chester Upland School District, Clairton City School District, Duquesne City School District, Farrell Area School District, Wilkinsburg Borough School District and Steelton-Highspire School District. Funding for the scholarships comes from donations by businesses which receive a state tax credit for donating.

Statewide academic ranking

Hanover Public School District was ranked 423rd out of 498 Pennsylvania school districts in 2012 by the Pittsburgh Business Times. The ranking was based on the last three years of student academic achievement on the PSSA results on: reading, writing, math and science.

• 2011 - 424th
• 2010 - 418th
• 2009 - 425th
• 2008 - 433rd
• 2007 - 402th of 500 school districts in Pennsylvania.

In 2012, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported an Overachievers Ranking for 498 Pennsylvania school districts. Hanover Public School District ranked 388th. The paper describes the ranking as: "a ranking answers the question - which school districts do better than expectations based upon economics? This rank takes the Honor Roll rank and adds the percentage of students in the district eligible for free and reduced lunch into the formula. A district finishing high on this rank is smashing expectations, and any district above the median point is exceeding expectations."

• 2011 - 439th
• 2010 - 410th
• 2009 - 453rd

In 2009, the academic achievement of the students in the Hanover public School District was in the bottom 15th percentile among 500 Pennsylvania public schools. Scale (0-99; 100 is state best)

In 2010 and 2011, Hanover Public School District achieved AYP status. In 2011, 94 percent of the 500 Pennsylvania Public School Districts achieved the No Child Left Behind Act progress level of 72% of students reading on grade level and 67% of students demonstrating on grade level math. In 2011, 46.9 percent of Pennsylvania school districts achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) based on student performance. An additional 37.8 percent of school districts made AYP based on a calculated method called safe harbor, 8.2 percent on the growth model and 0.8 percent on a two-year average performance.