First the good news -- close to 90% of Pennsylvania students are graduating high school, more than 70% are continuing their education beyond high school and test scores ae rising in some key areas. At the same time, Pennsylvania schools are facing challenges such as budget pressures, pension costs, high poverty rates and finding fulltime and substitute teachers.

Those are a few of the findings of a consortium of state education organizations that released a 2016-2017 State of Education Report this week. The report was compiled as "a barometer of not only the key indicators of public school performance, such as standardized test scores, but also the timely challenges that public schools are facing and how they are coping with them."

The comprehensive study is compiled by surveying chief school administrators from Pennsylvania's public school districts, career and technical centers and intermediate units. It looks at several different metrics; the demographic makeup of the state's K-12 students, student achievement, the challenges facing administrators, school finance, class size and others.

On Thursday's Smart Talk, we'll break down the findings of the study with Nathan Mains, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, John Pulver, Associate Director of the Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators; Tom Gluck, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units; Dr. Paul Healey, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Principals Association and Dr. Mark DiRocco, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.