Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School, run by String Theory Schools, is an urban K–12 campus that leverages technology and an emphasis on entrepreneurship to make learning relevant and real for students. Students are immersed in a project-based STEAM curriculum and choose a major to focus on in their education by fifth grade.
The school outperforms the state in the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) in science, has shown steady improvement in the PSSA in ELA, and maintains its level of achievement in the PSSA in math. The school’s building level academic score—a system used in Pennsylvania to compare schools—rose between 2015 and 2017. And in 2017, the school saw a 100 percent graduation rate—17 percentage points above the national average—and a 98 percent college acceptance rate.
Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School is recognized by Apple as a Distinguished School for innovative curriculum and outstanding content. String Theory Schools, which runs Philadelphia Performing Arts, has a waiting list of more than 5,000 students. One of the most significant endorsements of String Theory Schools came when the network was engaged by Philadelphia Public Schools to implement a comprehensive school improvement plan at one of the district’s underperforming school sites.
- Since 2015, third, fourth, and fifth graders have shown steady improvement in both math and ELA on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.
- More than 5,000 students are on the waiting list at String Theory Schools.
- There are more than 320,000 subscriptions on iTunes U to online courses developed by String Theory teachers, with users in more than 15 countries.
