re: this article & article on 4.25% tax increase: I guess we didn't invest enough in the new High School, or give the teachers a large enough raise. If we increase our $/student to $25,000 perhaps we can move back up the list to Lower Merion. It would be cheaper if we paid the tuition of the St. Mary's kids and sent them to another district, Springfield, Wissakockon, or how about back to Phila. I'm all for giving kids a second or third chance, but this seems out of hand.

Glass half full... UD is in the top 10%... no small feat year after year. sure money is spent on school and facilities and staff, but this is requisite to keep all schools going. It would be nice to see this trend reverse and improve next year and get back in the teens.

another perspective is the uncertain value of these types of standardized tests (which is a completely separate debate) as barometers of the 'quality of education' in local schools. Do higher PSSA scores equal "better schools"? or "better and more educated students"? This is a long standing and unresolved debate...

@DR. Greene: I believe you are correct it's a chicken (2 per half acre) egg scenario. But either other district scores went up and our stayed the same or our district's scores went down to account for the lower rating.

@Joe... agreed. it's relative to other districts and it's fair to compare UD to other distticts with similar size and similar demographics (eg Wissahickon? Hatboro-Horsham?)

PSSA is a barometer of school success, but a misguided one. Essentially, the test compares the class of 2010 scores compared to the class of 2011 scores. The test essentially assumes that each child has received all their education from Kindergarten to whatever grade they are testing within the specific district and that there is NO CHANGE in the intellectual ability of the students from year to year.

If the state wanted to TRULY know how students and individual teachers/schools were doing, then they would have to compare data of each individual student's progress from one test to the other.

The easiest way to show this is as follows:
Johnny transferred to Upper Dublin in 9th grade from a failing school. His PSSA scores from his prior school showed that he was BELOW Basic with a 5th grade reading level (4 grades below where he should be). When Johnny took the test again in 11th grade, he would most likely be "Below Basic". In the CURRENT way the state pulls this data, it would look like UDHS was failing.

However, if we looked at the individual student level with the same scenario, Johnny took the 11th grade PSSA and scored Below Basic but with a10th Grade reading level (1 year below where he should be), we would then know that UDHS raised his reading level 5 grades in only 2 years! To me, that is education!

@Upset.. EXACTLY. The tests, for the majority of students, are a fair measure compared to a PA State educational standard. In my view, they are not an indictment of the school system, nor are they neccesarily a pat on the back either. True education occurs over time.

The school district has gone downhill since Dr. Brown retired.

So the Horsham, Wissahickon, and Colonial school districts are ranked highr than UD. The Colonial school district's taxes don't even com close to UD's....and Colonial is ranked 20th.

The initial reference to Upper Dublin's ranking in the body of this article was incorrect and has been fixed. Thanks to those readers who emailed to point out the inconsistency.