Pa. public schools are generally worse than equivalents in most other states.
Pa. teachers are paid much better than most other states.
This is due to Pa. school boards prohibited from replacing teachers when they fail to perform to standards not set by the teachers union and being prohibited from replacing them when their contracts simply expire
Also, PA teachers have tenure after 2 years. This results in them being essentially “untouchable”, short of molesting a student or committing a felony.
And while there are good teachers in PA, the slackers continue to work, because they are protected by tenure, and the administrators oftentimes just don’t want to deal with the issue.
That’s not correct. Some of the top-rated public schools in the country are in PA. Note, for example, that people working in Delaware like to live just across the line to get their kids in PA school districts.
There are terrible problems with PA public schools, but those problems are widespread.