Delaware County Tech rates among Pennsylvania's best

In the region, school districts and schools such as Lower Merion, Tredyffrin/Easttown, Unionville-Chadds Ford, and Philadelphia's Masterman School are widely regarded as among the top public academic achievers in the state.

In the less-noticed area of career and technical education, the region can now boast of a school with a comparable ranking.

Last year, Delaware County Technical High School vaulted to number one in Pennsylvania in student success on a series of end-of-course examinations that gauge achievement in a variety of career programs.

In 2011, 94 percent of students who took the test at the school, which has 950 students at campuses in Folcroft and Aston, passed it. The state's "expected rate" of test achievement - the benchmark for a successful program - is 75 percent. The state average was 77.7 percent.

The school's success is all the more remarkable because its pass rate as late as 2008 was just 53 percent.

In recent years, the program has gotten a fillip of rigor with the use of more assessment data to help students, the infusion of more academic content into technical courses, and better professional staff training, Delaware County Tech administrative director Philip Lachimia said in an interview last week.

The school even established achievement teams whose goal was to get students more engaged in their education, and in doing well on the test, Lachimia said. Taking a page from PSSA examination prep in some schools, they even held pre-test pep rallies and post-test recognition ceremonies.

"What it all added up to is: We created a culture shift that led to everything being focused on student achievement," he said.

In an e-mail, state Education Department spokesman Tim Eller congratulated the school for "this great accomplishment, which shows their commitment to academic success." He added that the school could serve as a model for other career and technical education programs.

For the last 10 years, all public schools in Pennsylvania have had their academic performance rated annually on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, the state's academic achievement test.

The state's 86 career and technical education schools, however, use the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute examinations to rate ability in career fields.

The exam is a two-part test, half paper and pencil and half hands-on, which students must pass to complete their course of studies.