LAWRENCE: State report card scores please district officials

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Lawrence Township students overall performed better on mandatory standardized tests than did their counterparts statewide, according to a report released by the state Department of Education.
    The results were contained in the annual New Jersey School Report Card of all public schools in the state, released Feb. 4. Academic performance, class sizes, staff and student attendance rates, and salaries are among the information included in the report card.
    The majority of Lawrence Township third-graders who took the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK3) scored better on the language arts literacy and mathematics segments of the tests than third-grade students statewide.
    At the Lawrence Intermediate School, which handles students in fourth through sixth grade, students in all grades performed better on the NJASK 4/5/6/language arts literacy tests than their counterparts across New Jersey. On the mathematics tests, students in fourth and fifth grade did not score as well as others in those grades, but students in sixth grade performed better than other sixth-graders statewide.
    The results were similar for seventh- and eighth-graders at Lawrence Middle School, where they outperformed their counterparts statewide in language arts literacy. On the math test, LMS seventh-graders did not perform as well as seventh-graders statewide, but LMS eighth-graders did better than others across the state.
    Lawrence High School 11th-graders scored better on the language arts literacy test than other 11th-graders in the state, but they did not fare as well as others on the math test on the High School Proficiency Assessment. The HSPA is mandatory for high school graduation.
    The state report card showed that LHS students who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test scored about the same as others who took the test. The average SAT math score for LHS students was 509, compared to 516 statewide. The results were closer on the verbal section, where LHS students scored an average of 493 and statewide the result was 492.
    Superintendent of Schools Philip Meara said overall, school district officials are pleased with the report card. The district could do better because academic excellence for all students is the school board’s goal, he said.
    “I think state testing in general is on a continuum,” Mr. Meara said. “You look for trends rather than any individual year. The test is a snapshot of that particular day. We go up and down. The trend for the past three years is positive.”
    “Where I would put more emphasis is on the district’s Northwest Evaluation Association project,” he said. “It helps us to key into every child. It gives us the ability to (offer) differentiated instruction in the classroom.”
    The NWEA project tests students at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year, which allows educators to gauge a student’s academic growth, Mr. Meara said. It helps teachers identify students who need more help and those who have mastered the curriculum and who could benefit from academic enrichment.
    “We know that, in general, the state report card gives parents a lot of useful information,” he said. “Lawrence has a longer school day and more computers (than the state average). Parents can use the state report card to get comparative data and find out where we stand compared to everyone else.”
    The full report card is available at the state Department of Education’s Web site at http://education.state.nj.us.