Disclaimer: This is a loaded post. Thanks for reading nonetheless.
I’ve been looking at Bergen County schools state assessment reports for sometime and it wasn’t until recently that I decided to do a comparison of the results across two different school years and I noticed that some of the schools in certain towns either remained about the same or underwent a pretty decent % change when it comes to its students performing at proficiency (L3) and beyond (L4,L5).
I did the comparison for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 grade 8 Math testing. Why did I choose grade 8 math? I felt like it might be the year and subject that might be the hardest, but I’m no teacher. I’m just a parent with two kids that will start school soon. Maybe I should check the other grades, like 3rd grade math testing scores for this analysis?
For more details on what data and stats I’m referring to, please look at: https://www.nj.gov/education/assessment/results/reports/
For additional reference, the L proficiency has been defined as follows:
Levels 1 and 2 indicate below-grade-level proficiency. Levels 3 and 4 indicate students performed at grade-level or above. Source for this is https://njedreport.com/scoop-first-peek-at-new-jersey-state-test-scores/#:~:text=Levels%201%20and%202%20indicate,)%2C%20math%2C%20and%20science%2C%20math%2C%20and%20science).
The comparison is listed below and my questions are:
- What happened in these school districts (or Towns) that caused the proficiency of the student population to drop so much? One example is Maywood with a 21% change between the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school year?
- Similarly, for a school that saw a positive % change, what contributed to this? Did the town hire more teachers? Did the town get more funding? Did the student to teacher ratio change?
- Is a one year analysis enough to say: “Maywood schools aren’t great because of the drop in proficiency level” or “Norwood and Waldwick significantly improved the proficiency levels and therefore these school districts have become competitive.”
- For those school districts that have maintained consistency in test scores across the two school years, I am interpreting the consistency and small percent change as a town with a historically great school district. Is this an accurate assumption?
- For Ramsey: I believe there’s a blue-ribbon school, but how competitive does it really get when you compare it to say, New Milford? Just by looking at this data, I’m inclined to moving to New Milford instead of Ramsey (not saying I’m doing this, but it’s just an example). Is this logic flawed?
Thanks for reading. Again, I’m just a parent that will soon have kids in public schools and wanted to understand how this works. I didn’t go to any of these schools. I went to a school that was considered great at that time, but now it has become mediocre.
| 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Town | L3-L5 | L3-L5 | % change |
| Allendale | 86% | 90% | |
| Ho-Ho-Kus | 80% | 90% | +10% |
| Harrington Park | 77% | 86% | +9 |
| Waldwick | 65% | 81% | +16% |
| Upper Saddle River | 72% | 79% | |
| Northvale | 67% | 78% | +11% |
| Wyckoff | 60% | 77% | +17% |
| New Milford | 70% | 75% | |
| Closter | 69% | 75% | +6% |
| Woodcliff Lake | 82% | 75% | -7% |
| Demarest | 86% | 73% | -13%’ |
| Ramsey | 60% | 70% | +10% |
| River Edge / Oradell | 70% | 70% | +10% |
| Paramus | 61% | 70% | +9% |
| River Vale | 70% | 70% | |
| Tenafly | 72% | 67% | |
| Fair Lawn | 55% | 66% | +11% |
| Haworth | 45% | 65% | +20% |
| Maywood | 86% | 65% | -21% |
| Cresskill | 57% | 64% | +7% |
| Norwood | 38% | 64% | +26% |
| Midland Park | 38% | 59% | +21% |
| Westwood | 51% | 58% | +7% |
| Dumont | 55% | 57% | |
| Hasbrouck Heights | 52% | 56% | |
| Hillsdale | 64% | 56% | -8% |
| Mahwah | 52% | 55% | |
| Montvale | 65% | 55% | -10% |
| Bergenfield | 38% | 52% | +14% |
| Teaneck | 55% | 52% | |
| Park Ridge | 48% | 40% | -8% |
submitted by /u/balenciagagucciprada to r/bergencounty
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