Land assessed value and school district rating (Allentown, Bethlehem: low income, real estate)

[PacoMartin]

While I admit this is a crude ranking, I am hard pressed to come up with a better one. The municipalities in Northampton and Lehigh County can be ranked by thousands of dollars of assessed value of real estate per person.

If a municipality has a lot of tax dollars, the accompanying school district can afford better equipment, smaller classrooms, and higher teacher salaries.

Assessed value of real estate includes residential, commercial, and corporate. All is taxed for the school district.

Restricting the list to municipalities of over 5000 people, the following list is presented. For example Lower Nazareth has assessed value of taxabe real estate equivalent to $61,000 per person, and it is a "township" (as opposed to a borough or a city).

$61 Lower Nazareth ( 5,674 ) township
$58 Upper Macungie ( 20,063 ) township
$45 Hanover-Northampton County ( 10,866 ) township
$41 Upper Saucon ( 14,808 ) township
$41 Lower Saucon ( 10,772 ) township
$39 South Whitehall ( 19,180 ) township, First Class
$38 Williams ( 5,884 ) township
$37 Lower Macungie ( 30,633 ) township, First Class
$34 Forks ( 14,721 ) township
$34 Bethlehem Township ( 23,730 ) township, First Class
$33 Upper Milford ( 7,292 ) township
$33 Salisbury ( 13,505 ) township, First Class
$32 Palmer ( 20,691 ) township
$31 Bushkill ( 8,178 ) township
$31 Plainfield ( 6,138 ) township
$30 Upper Mount Bethel ( 6,706 ) township
$29 North Whitehall ( 15,703 ) township
$28 Washington ( 5,122 ) township
$28 Moore ( 9,198 ) township
$27 Lehigh ( 10,526 ) township
$26 Whitehall ( 26,738 ) township, First Class
$25 Upper Nazareth ( 6,231 ) township
$23 Emmaus ( 11,211 ) borough
$22 Hellertown ( 5,898 ) borough
$22 Washington ( 6,624 ) township
$21 Nazareth ( 5,746 ) borough
$20 Northampton ( 9,926 ) borough
$20 Bethlehem ( 74,982 ) city
$19 Wilson ( 7,896 ) township
$17 Bangor ( 5,273 ) borough
$15 Catasaqua ( 6,436 ) borough
$14 Allentown ( 118,032 ) city
$13 Easton ( 26,800 ) city

According to PA state law, a township can be designated "First Class" if it has over 300 per square mile, and the township votes to be so designated. Basically it controls how many commissioners they may elect. For instance "Upper Macungie" and "Lower Macungie" both have the required density, but only one of them has elected to become "First Class".

The cities of Allentown (23.9%) and Easton (20.3%) have the highest percentage of people living under the poverty line, and they have a very low tax assessment to draw on for their schools.

[toobusytoday]

Interesting work Paco, but the school districts are not usually made up of just one township. Southern Lehigh school district is Upper Saucon, Lower Milford and the borough of Coopersburg. Saucon School district is all of Hellertown and parts of Lower Saucon. East Penn school district includes the Boroughs of Alburtis, Emmaus and Macungie and Lower Macungie Township and Upper Milford.

As a non-native Pennsylvanian the whole school set up was confusing to me. It's not straightforward at all.

[PacoMartin]

I realize that the method is somewhat limited. In general actual ranking of districts is considered anethema to most organizations.

For instance, people often cite schools with high levels of spending and very low performance as proof that money does not matter. However, after closer examination of revenue and expenditures it may become apparent that significant amounts of money received by the district are required for designated programs -
Title 1 programs,
IDEA grants,
Free and Reduced Lunch Programs,
Transportation, etcetera –

the money of such programs does not go into the actual instructional costs of a student, but are included in the expenditure data, which may falsely inflate the current expenditures per pupil.

Also, as you mentioned some suburban school districts (like Nazareth which has 3 elementary schools) cover several municipalities.
$61 Lower Nazareth ( 5,674 ) township
$32 Stockertown ( 927 ) borough
$31 Bushkill ( 8,178 ) township
$25 Upper Nazareth ( 6,231 ) township
$24 Tatamy ( 1,203 ) borough
$21 Nazareth ( 5,746 ) borough


Ranking school districts by PSSA is also limited.

Total PSSA School District Low Income Limited English Spending per pupil
9,087 84.50 Parkland 6.6 124 $9,312
3,108 82.85 Southern Lehigh 7.1 8 $9,464
7,921 82.40 East Penn 10.4 97 $8,431
1,891 79.55 Salisbury Township 12.4 102 $12,346
2,376 76.15 Northwestern Lehigh 7.5 11 $9,995
4,262 73.80 Whitehall-Coplay 21.1 162 $7,808
2,045 70.05 Northern Lehigh 25.7 23 $9,619
1,705 66.15 Catasauqua Area 22.0 25 $10,864
18,129 49.75 Allentown City 71.4 1,988 $8,291


The Allentown city school district, which has roughly 1/3 of the students in Lehigh County, does seem to come out pretty badly when compared to the other 8 school districts in the rest of the county.