Numbers don’t lie. Newark schools are failing.
And the teachers union is protecting bad teachers.
The Newark Public Schools official graduation rate in 2005-06 was 75.9%, but don't let that number fool you. Almost half (48.9%) of the students in that class “graduated” via the Special Review Assessment, a test that the state education commissioner proposed abolishing in 2005, saying that its easy availability “cheats students out of a high school education.” Put another way, last year only 38.8% of Newark seniors graduated with a normal high school diploma. Averaged over the previous four years, it turns out that a mere 30.6% of seniors have walked with that same diploma. |
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But even that diploma doesn’t mean much. State education commissioner Lucille Davy has labeled the regular high school graduation exam “the equivalent of a middle school-level test,” according to the Newark Star-Ledger. Reviewing state graduation exams (including New Jersey’s) in 2004, the non-profit Achieve Inc. found that “much of the knowledge and skills in the reviewed tests should be covered by the time a student reaches the end of middle school or ninth grade,” according to The Jersey Journal. |
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| 2006 New Jersey State Tests |
Statewide
Pass Rate |
Newark
Pass Rate |
Newark
Grade |
| Third Grade Language Arts Assessment |
82.5% |
58.6% |
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| Third Grade Mathematics Assessment |
86.9% |
68.7% |
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| Fourth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
80% |
59.7% |
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| Fourth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
82.4% |
63.7% |
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| Fourth Grade Science Assessment |
82.3% |
59.5% |
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| Fifth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
85.9% |
62.7% |
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| Fifth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
81.7% |
57.9% |
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Sixth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
75% |
46.1% |
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| Sixth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
70.8% |
38.7% |
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| Seventh Grade Language Arts Assessment |
80.2% |
55.4% |
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| Seventh Grade Mathematics Assessment |
64.3% |
37.9% |
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| Eighth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
74.3% |
44.9% |
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| Eighth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
64.5% |
31.2% |
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| Eighth Grade Science Assessment |
79% |
48.9% |
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High School Proficiency Assessment
Language Arts Literacy (for graduation) |
83.5% |
53.6% |
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High School Proficiency Assessment
Mathematics (for graduation) |
75.9% |
40.3% |
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Newark schoolchildren are being left behind: Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), only two school districts out of 615 in the entire state missed all six quality benchmarks (including reading and math performance as well as graduation rates). One is Camden, and the other...is Newark.
The Star-Ledger reported on August 24, 2006 that 60 Newark schools (out of 75) were on notice under NCLB for failing to make adequate progress in improving student performance. Twenty percent of the city's schools are facing imminent takeover by the federal government for failing to improve standards for four or more years in a row.
Newark schools are expensive: In exchange for a low-quality Newark education, the government spent $18,035 per student in the 2004-05 school year, 38% more than the $13,050 spent on the average New Jersey student statewide. Taking the district's graduation rate into account, it costs $758,589.29 to produce one normal high school diploma.
Newark schools are less likely to include children of Newark teachers: A 2004 report from the Fordham Institute found that public school teachers in the New York-Northeastern New Jersey area (which includes Newark) are 43% more likely than the typical family to send their own kids to private schools.
Newark schools are doing worse than socioeconomic peers, too: On 13 out of 16 performance measures, Newark schools fare worse than schools in the same District Factor Groups (DFGs, which compare schools with the same socioeconomic status), as measured by the state:
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| Newark's Comparative Performance - 2006 |
Pass Rate for Newark |
DFG Pass Rate |
Difference |
| Third Grade Language Arts Assessment |
58.6% |
63.2% |
-4.6% |
| Third Grade Mathematics Assessment |
68.7% |
72.8% |
-4.1% |
| Fourth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
59.7% |
60.3% |
-0.6% |
| Fourth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
63.7% |
65.1% |
-1.4% |
| Fourth Grade Science Assessment |
59.5% |
59.4% |
0.1% |
| Fifth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
62.7% |
66.7% |
-4.0% |
| Fifth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
57.9% |
62.3% |
-4.4% |
| Sixth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
46.1% |
47.1% |
-1.0% |
| Sixth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
38.7% |
45% |
-6.3% |
| Seventh Grade Language Arts Assessment |
55.4% |
55% |
0.4% |
| Seventh Grade Mathematics Assessment |
37.9% |
37.7% |
0.2% |
| Eighth Grade Language Arts Assessment |
44.9% |
45.7% |
-0.8% |
| Eighth Grade Mathematics Assessment |
31.2% |
33.6% |
-2.4% |
| Eighth Grade Science Assessment |
48.9% |
50.5% |
-1.6% |
High School Proficiency Assessment
Language Arts Literacy (for graduation) |
53.6% |
57.5% |
-3.9% |
High School Proficiency Assessment
Mathematics (for graduation) |
40.3% |
45.2% |
-4.9% |
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