A PSSA delay means Philly kids may have to take an alternative test to get into special admission schools. Here’s why.

Call it the mystery of the test scores.

Philadelphia School District officials said this week that because of a delay in Harrisburg, they cannot use the latest state test scores to judge whether the school system’s academics are improving.

The apparent bureaucratic delay could have real-world consequences for Philadelphia students who rely on the state test scores for admittance into selective magnet schools. And because the 2025-2026 PSSA and Keystone results now won’t be part of the closely watched school selection process, district officials said, some kids may need to take an alternate assessment if they want a chance at attending a magnet school.

But the situation seems murky, with Philadelphia walling off its data in ways that other districts have not.

Districts across Pennsylvania — including Philadelphia — received preliminary school-level scores from the Pennsylvania Department of Education in the spring, as is typical, sources confirmed to The Inquirer. And though some Philadelphia principals and teachers did see limited data for some incoming students for rostering purposes in August, most of the student- and school-level data remains for hidden.

Here’s what we know, and what we don’t know, about the score release.

Pennsylvania moved in the spring to fully-online administration of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, the state’s standardized test for third through eighth graders. Research shows that a shift from paper tests to online exams typically yields drops in student test scores.

Many districts experienced technical glitches early in the PSSA assessment window, with some students unable to log in to complete their exams. Some canceled testing for a day, shifting assessment schedules because of the problems with the online system.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education usually releases preliminary statewide results to districts in August or September, to give educational leaders time to crunch the numbers and prepare for a fall public release of the data.

But PDE officials, in a letter sent to districts on Tuesday, said there would be a delay because a “review of the preliminary data is still underway.”

No reasons for the shift were given, and no information was shared about whether the public release, which usually happens in the late fall, will be pushed back.

While other districts and charters still have access to school- and student-level data from the 2025-26 PSSAs and Keystones, Philadelphia kept the vast majority of its data hidden from principals and teachers.

Though some other data, like the results of periodic benchmark tests, is still available, PSSA and Keystone figures are often used to help pinpoint student needs.

Monique Braxton, the system spokesperson, said in a statement Wednesday that the district’s Office of Evaluation, Research and Accountability told principals in June that “state test data are embargoed and not available until they are verified by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.”

That review was expected to be completed by Tuesday, Braxton said, but has been pushed back.

“Until this process is complete, assessment data will not be released,” Braxton said. “Additional information will be shared after PDE completes its review and the official statewide results are released.”

It remains unclear why most Philadelphia data is still inaccessible to school staff.

Philadelphia’s school selection window, where students can apply to the city’s 37 sought-after criteria-based schools, opens Sept. 8.

But the questions around the state data mean that the district “cannot use the 2025-26 assessment results to evaluate year-over-year student achievement or as the required criterion for school selection,” Braxton said. “In the interim, students will have the opportunity to take an alternative assessment in the fall and submit those results instead.

The district did not address questions about what assessment will be given, when it will be offered, whether it will be mandatory for school selection, or what will happen if students want to apply for criteria-based schools but not take the alternative assessment. It also did not answer questions about whether there will be an additional cost for the new assessment.

Watlington has staked his reputation on Philadelphia being the “fastest-improving large urban district in the country,” and the district has posted promising, if incremental, gains during his tenure. Philadelphia students’ learning post-pandemic was best in the nation, according to recent research out of Harvard and Stanford, though district students still perform 2.46 grade levels below the pre-pandemic national average.

District-wide, 34% of students score at grade level in English and 23% in math, as judged by 2024-25 standardized tests.

Braxton said in the statement that after consulting with PDE, “the district cannot use the 2025-26 assessment results to evaluate year-over-year student achievement.”

More information will be shared, Braxton said, “as it is received from the PDE.”