Student Performance Varied Throughout District

The state recently released the school report cards for all districts, and Bridgewater schools are varied in how they rank.

With changes in state testing, districts are now grouped based on performance, rather than socioeconomic levels, as they had been in the past.

Those peer schools, according to the report, are classified based on schools with similar grade levels and students with similar demographic characteristics, like qualifying for Free/Reduced Lunch and special education programs.

"They are much different from the old school report card," said Cheryl Dyer, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, at Tuesday's board of education meeting. "There are 13 pages per school, and there is a lot of data, lot of comparisons. They have different ways of reporting on achievement and growth."

The reports were delivered to individual districts Wednesday.

"They identified schools across the state with similar demographics, similar makeup and similar numbers of free and reduced lunch, and those became the comparison schools," Dyer said. "Absenteeism is a big factor in the new school report card, and there is an indicator at the elementary level of whether you are preparing students for college and career."

Dyer said they have been told the peer groups could change as performance improves.

"As you climb to the top of the peer group, your peer group could change and then you might be in the lower ranking of another peer group," she said. "But the determination of the peer group leaves a lot of questions."

Dyer did not respond to a request for comment on the reports Friday afternoon.

Tuesday, however, Dyer said she could put together a report to deliver to the entire school board if they are interested.

According to the report, academic achievement focuses on the content knowledge students have in language arts and math. College and career readiness measures the degree at which students demonstrate behaviors indicative of future success in college and careers.

As for the comparisons to peer groups, each school ranked a little differently, with John F. Kennedy Primary School severely lagging behind its peer group, only achieving in the 11th percentile for academic achievement, 39th percentile for college and career readiness and 15th percentile in student growth.

Van Holten Primary School ranked fairly high, performing in the 65th percentile in academic achievement, 60th percentile in college and career readiness and 72nd percentile in student growth.

Adamsville Primary School also ranked high, in the 58th percentile for academic achievement, 60th percentile for college and career readiness and 99th percentile for student growth. The last is the highest ranking of all the district schools.

At Milltown Primary School, students achieved in the 53rd percentile in academic achievement, 26th percentile in college and career readiness and 69th percentile in student growth.

In Hamilton Primary School, students ranked in the 53rd percentile for academic achievement, 32nd in college and career readiness and 90th in student growth.

Crim Primary School is seeing students in the 31st percentile in academic achievement, 65th in college and career readiness and 22nd in student growth.

And finally, for the primary schools, at Bradley Gardens Primary School, students ranked in the 60th percentile for academic achievement, 37th in college and career readiness and 20th for student growth.

In the intermediate schools, students ranked from average through very high in all categories.

At Eisenhower Intermediate, students ranked in the 82nd percentile for academic achievement, 81st in college and career readiness and 77th in student growth.

At Hillside Intermediate, students ranked in the 50th percentile in academic achievement, 87th in college and career readiness and 78th in student growth.

In the Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School, students ranked in the 54th percentile for academic achievement, 71st in college and career readiness and 69th in student growth.

Finally, at the Bridgewater-Raritan High School, students are very prepared for college, but not so much in the area of graduation and post-secondary work. Students ranked in the 97th percentile for academic achievement, 69th percentile in college and career readiness and 39th percentile in the performance area for graduation and post secondary education.

The graduation category measures the rate at which students who begin high school four years earlier graduate high school.

For more information, or to read the individual reports, click here.