By Jill Jachera
With such a large portion of our local budget going to our schools, I read with interest the recent article titled “Public Schools Rank Well in State Report” to see if Princeton residents are getting what they pay for.
After all, high taxes in Princeton have consistently been justified by the Princeton School Board as necessary to its delivery of a superior public school education. In fact, many people move to Princeton and suffer the high taxes solely because they believe their children will get a superior education.
Several things about the article took me by surprise. First, the article gave high praise to Johnson Park, but does not report that it only met 75 percent of its overall targets, did not meet its progress targets for language arts and was only ranked in the 80th percentile in the state for academic achievement.
The article states that Littlebrook “did well,” but fails to tell the reader that while it met its progress targets, it was only ranked in the 78th percentile in the state for academic achievement.
The article then goes on to describe Community Park as “about average,” but does not tell you that it failed to meet 25 percent of its overall targets, did not meet its Progress Targets for math and was only ranked in the 57th percentile in the state for academic achievement.
As for the high school, it only ranked in the 64th percentile in the state and only in the 42th percentile among its peer schools for academic achievement, or as the article says, “about average.”
With the size of the Princeton Public School budget, I can’t think of anyone in Princeton that thinks their child should be getting an “about average” education.
However, the article does not question Superintendent Judy Wilson about these sub par results, nor does she offer any explanation for these disappointing results in academic achievement.
In addition to the complacency with “about average” being a surprise, I was also surprised by the absence of any mention of the Princeton Charter School in an article about the Princeton public schools. While the Princeton Charter School has been a Princeton public school for 15 years and is attended by 343 Princeton residents, the article completely ignored it or its results.
For those interested, Princeton Charter School scored “very high” in all categories and was ranked in the 99th percentile in the state for academic achievement, higher than any of the other Princeton public schools, which were ranked as follows Riverside 95th, JW 93rd, Johnson Park 80th, Littlebrook 78th, Princeton High School 64th and Community Park 57th.
My purpose in pointing this out is that is that ALL children of Princeton deserve a “very high” education, not an “about average” education, especially with the exorbitant taxes we all pay. It was this desire for a “very high” education that led its founders to start the Princeton Charter School.
However, since its founding, the Princeton Public School Board, administrators, teachers and some parents have refused to recognize the Princeton Charter School as another public school with which it could collaborate, and instead have fought its founding, its efforts to expand and have encouraged a public campaign to make people believe that the Princeton Charter School is disadvantageous to the other Princeton public schools.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, at the Charter School, taxpayers only pay 70 percent per student of what they pay at the other Princeton public schools. Instead of the Princeton School Board, administrators, teachers and organizations like Save my Schools continually fighting and ignoring the Princeton Charter School as a public school, maybe a better result would come if the schools collaborated on best practices so that ALL Princeton students can get a “very high” education at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer.
In the meantime, I hope the public asks Judy Wilson and the Princeton School Board some tough questions, like why our residents pay some of the highest taxes in the state and many of our residents are being delivered an “about average” education.
Jill Jachera is a resident of Princeton and a former candidate for mayor.
