BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
As 11th- and 12th-graders throughout the state this week take the 2005 HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment), school officials of even the highest scoring districts in Middlesex County are keeping their fingers crossed for improved scores, especially in mathematics, over last year.
“We’ve been pleased,” Metuchen curriculum director Ruth Ziznewski said. “In truth, any district doesn’t stop pushing for improved scores.”
Although recently released school report cards show Metuchen’s 11th-graders last year performing at 46 percent proficient in language arts and 41.5 percent proficient in mathematics, 20 percentage points and four percentage points below the state average respectively, Ziznewski likes the results.
“Typically, 92 to 93 percent place in passing, but every year fluctuates,” she said. “They’ve always done well in English and math, just outstanding.”
While the number of Metuchen students testing as proficient is below the state standard, Ziznewski said those scores are due to the high number of Metuchen High School students placing in the advanced proficiency category.
In mathematics, 42 percent tested as advanced, and in language arts, 47 percent, according to N.J. Department of Education statistics.
Ziznewski credits smaller class sizes and strong math and language arts curricula in elementary and middle schools as the key to the district’s HSPA success.
“We have a small high school with a real family-centered community environment,” Ziznewski said. “If children begin to appear as at risk or are not achieving, we have put into place opportunities to remediate or keep their skills up.”
But not all districts have the benefit of smaller class sizes. And unlike Metuchen, many districts see a wider gap between the language arts and mathematics scores.
The state average for proficiency in language arts is 20 percent higher than mathematics.
In Edison, there exists not only a gap between language arts and mathematics proficiency but a marked difference between the two high schools’ partial proficiency in mathematics. Only 12 percent of J.P. Stevens High School students scored as partially proficient in math, but across town at Edison High School almost a quarter of 11th-graders were partially proficient in math last year.
“I don’t want to pin it on only one reason,” Assistant Superintendent Rose Traficante said about the two school’s differential in math proficiency. “We don’t really talk in these terms. To compare the two schools just is not fair.”
Edison is considering an additional math supervisor to improve the district’s entire math program, Traficante said.
But while Traficante said to compare the two schools within the district was not fair, J.P. Stevens is located in what is considered North Edison, where real estate prices are higher.
How much does economic status have to do with the quality of education a student receives?
Quite a bit, said Woodbridge Superintendent of Schools Lois Rotella.
Children coming from economically disadvantaged households have more obstacles to overcome, Rotella said.
“We look at a lot of factors, not just one and walk away from it,” she said. “If a child comes from an economically disadvantaged home, that is a key factor that influences how children do in school. It’s what all the latest studies show. But we try to help children caught in an economically disadvantaged situation and reverse it.”
Ronald C. Grygo is the school superintendent of South River. South River’s district factor group (DFG) is a CD. Until last year, South River was one classification away from Abbott district status.
The DFG is a classification system created by the state that approximates a community’s socioeconomic status. The DRG ranges from A (Abbott districts New Brunswick, Asbury Park) to J (Franklin Lakes, Upper Saddle River).
Grygo not only agrees with Rotella’s theory on economic status but decries what he called a trend of state-mandated testing.
“I thoroughly agree with the assistant superintendent over at Woodbridge,” Grygo said. “There’s no doubt about it. The B and CD schools could use more state funding to provide additional staff and a lower class size. We try to do all these things within the limit of what we have been generously given by our taxpayers, but the state is not providing us with the necessary funding. Unfortunately, the children are only with us six hours a day. In a sense, it’s a shame.”
Thirty-two percent of South River students were partially proficient in mathematics last year. A plus for South River is that percentage is a 6 percent decrease from 2003. The number of students proficient in math jumped that same 6 percent this year.
Like Edison High School, approximately 25 percent of Woodbridge and Colonia high schools’ students performed at a partial proficiency in mathematics last year.
Despite this, 98 percent of Colonia students will graduate this year by passing the HSPA. In Woodbridge High School, that figure is 90 percent, still 5 percent above the state average, according to Department of Education statistics.
Rotella concludes that the high partial proficiency rating in math is due to those students answering wrong just one or two questions on the HSPA.
“They could still score high but just miss one or two strands on the test,” she said. “They may have missed the cut-off by two or three points in most cases. A lot of kids still score high on the tests.”
Still the two high schools have lowered their partial proficiency score in math by 10 percent in one academic year.
“The goal is to reduce the partial proficiency and increase the advance proficiency,” she said. “We’ve had some luck in that area.”
Bucking the trend of higher language arts scores, East Brunswick High School has some of the highest HSPA math scores in the county.
Forty-five percent of 11th-graders last year scored as advanced proficient in mathematics at East Brunswick High School.
“I think it’s the instructional program,” Deputy Superintendent Evelyn Ogden said. “Academics level courses are aligned with the assessment program.”
East Brunswick High students do exceedingly well in their math courses, Ogden said, and “most of them take virtually four years of math at the least.”
And unlike Metuchen, which shares East Brunswick’s DFG I classification, East Brunswick does not have small class sizes, Ogden said.
“We have a average class size of 25 which is just slightly over the state average,” she said.
Being an I classified district does not work against high test scores, Ogden said.
“It’s certainly not the main factor,” she said, “but it is a factor.”
At JFK High School in Woodbridge, only 14 percent of the students who took the HSPA last year were partially proficient in math. What’s more is that there is little disparity between the students’ scores in language arts and math across the board.
Fourteen percent of JFK’s students were partially proficient in both math and language arts in 2004; 61 and 59 percent were proficient in language arts and math, respectively; 24 percent placed as advanced proficient in language arts and 26 percent advanced in math.
What is JFK doing right?
“They work very hard at it,” Rotella said. “The teachers constantly evaluate the students, which is what Kennedy does. They constantly assess where the students are at. They evaluate homework and look for HSPA skills necessary while infusing it with the normal curriculum.”
The 2005 HSPA was scheduled to be administered to 11th- and 12th-graders in New Jersey public schools on March 1, 2, 3 and 4.