PhiladelphiaGrowth vs statusMethodology recipe

PVAAS growth is more democratic than proficiency — and Philly has the data NYC doesn't

A reproducibility log: the data this analysis touched, the queries it ran, and how a third party would re-run it.

Summary

Pulled the top 8 PVAAS Algebra growth scores (subgroup=ALL) from the Future Ready Performance file. School types of these top scorers cover the demographic spectrum.

Data sources

Database tablephilly_schools
One row per Philly school. PK is ulcs_code (SDP canonical, = id_eos in PSSA, = SRC_School_ID × 10). Carries aun_code + pa_code for PDE-side joins.
Database tablephilly_school_year_metrics
Long-format facts. PK (school_ulcs, year, metric_key, subgroup, population_cut). Carries comparison_group_percentile + citywide_percentile (direction-adjusted).
External datasetFuture Ready PA Index (PDE)

Steps

Top PVAAS growth scorers.

SELECT s.name, s.school_type::text, m.value
FROM philly_school_year_metrics m
JOIN philly_schools s ON s.ulcs_code = m.school_ulcs
WHERE m.metric_key='pvaas_growth_math_algebra1' AND m.subgroup='ALL'
ORDER BY m.value DESC LIMIT 8;

Caveats

PVAAS is on a fixed scale (0-100 typically, with 100 = meeting/exceeding all annual growth expectations). Many schools hit the ceiling; we'd need student-level data to distinguish among ceiling-hitters.

Reproduce

Load FRPI Performance file, query above.

The recipe lives at data/cities/philly/stories/recipes.ts in the repo.