 In 2013, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania changed its high school assessments to the Keystone Exams in Algebra 1, Reading/literature and Biology1.The exams are given at the end of the applicable course, rather than all in the spring of the student's 11th grade year.According to a Pennsylvania Department of Education study released in January 2009, 35% of the Brownsville Area High School graduates required remediation in mathematics and or reading before they were prepared to take college level courses in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education or community colleges.