Education in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is Committed to the Advancement and Growth of Education for All Students Throughout the Commonwealth

The mis­sion of the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is to ensure that every learn­er has access to a world‐class edu­ca­tion sys­tem that aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly pre­pares chil­dren and adults to suc­ceed as pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens. Further, the Department seeks to estab­lish a cul­ture that is com­mit­ted to improv­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties through­out the com­mon­wealth by ensur­ing that tech­ni­cal sup­port, resources, and opti­mal learn­ing envi­ron­ments are avail­able for all stu­dents, whether chil­dren or adults.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) over­sees all of the state’s pub­lic school dis­tricts, the pub­lic char­ter schools, pub­lic cyber char­ter schools, Career and Technology Centers/Vocational Technical schools, pub­lic Intermediate Units, the edu­ca­tion of youth in State Juvenile Correctional Institutions, Head Starts and pub­licly fund­ed preschools, and com­mu­ni­ty col­leges. PDE also over­sees poli­cies relat­ed to pub­lic, aca­d­e­m­ic, and school libraries, and the State Library of Pennsylvania.

Data, Reporting and Statistics

The Pennsylvania Department of Education com­piles and ana­lyzes a wide vari­ety of data about atten­dance, grad­u­a­tion rates, schools and school dis­tricts, stu­dent progress, trans­porta­tion, and oth­er infor­ma­tion.  Just a few of them are list­ed below, but click here to go to the PDE web­site for the full list­ing of avail­able infor­ma­tion.