PSSA + Keystone, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Proficient or Advanced.English Language Arts / Literature
86.1%
State avg 51.1%
District avg 40.7%
County avg 59.2%
+0.3pp since 2023-24
Mathematics / Algebra I
61.8%
State avg 43.0%
District avg 28.7%
County avg 51.2%
+2.3pp since 2023-24
Science / Biology
59.4%
State avg 50.6%
District avg 35.9%
County avg 56.2%
-18.2pp since 2023-24
What this means: On the PSSA + Keystone, Pennsylvania's statewide test, about 86 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 62 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 59 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all Pennsylvania schools, those numbers are about 51, 43, and 51. Reading and writing scores have held steady since 2023, while math scores are up about 2 points and science scores are down about 18 points.
Rank: Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 places #63 of 576 Pennsylvania high schools, and #10 of 45 in Allegheny County for state test proficiency.
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
OUTPERFORMING
Top 10% of PA schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
71.5%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
35.5%
based on PA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
+36.0pp
above demographic expectation
What this means: About 71% of students here test proficient in math and reading, well above the roughly 35% typical for Pennsylvania schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations ranks schools against others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school can post high scores and still fall short of its prediction, or post lower scores and still beat it. This school clears its prediction by about 36 points, placing it in Pennsylvania's top 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual.
How this is calculated →What is PSSA + Keystone?
PSSA + Keystone is the statewide standardized test administered by Pennsylvania public schools.
What does "% Proficient or Advanced" mean?
It is the share of students at the school who performed at grade level or above on the test, summed across the top two of four performance levels. A higher number is better.
What does 86.1% mean for English Language Arts / Literature at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12?
It means about 86.1 percent of students tested at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 performed at grade level or above on the PSSA + Keystone English Language Arts / Literature test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Pennsylvania that year was 51.1%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Pennsylvania, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Pennsylvania Department of Education, Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) for grades 3-8 and Keystone Exams (Literature, Algebra I, Biology) at the high-school level. School-level All Students subgroup, "Percent Proficient and above" column from the PDE school-level data downloads. Top 2 of 4 PA performance levels (Proficient + Advanced).
How often is it updated?
PSSA + Keystone is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.
