School Report Cards: A to F
It's always interesting to sift through the annual State Report Card to see which districts are doing well - and which ones could be doing better. In the latter category is Asbury Park, which again spent more per-pupil than any K-12 district in the state, $18,429, and had among the lowest test scores. Two other numbers on Asbury Park's report card also stood out: 77 percent of its students were defined as low income - a figure far higher than most high schools in Newark - and 65 percent of its students took the SATs even though only 20 percent said they planned to attend four-year colleges.
Also worthy of note: three of Monmouth County's magnet schools finished among the top six statewide in highest average SAT scores. High Technology H.S. was first, with a combined average score of 2038 - 683 in verbal, 693 in math and 662 in writing. All of the top six schools were magnet schools. Millburn was No. 1 among the non-magnets, with a combined average SAT of 1864. The rest of the non-magnet top 10: Princeton Regional, Tenafly, West Windsor-Plainsboro, Holmdel (1764), Montgomery and West Windsor-Plainsboro, Northern Valley (Bergen), Glen Ridge and Chatham.
In Monmouth County, Rumson-Fair Haven (1671) had the second highest SATs of the non-magnets, followed by Marlboro (1668) and Freehold Borough (1622). In Ocean County, Point Pleasant Beach High School (1605) had the highest SATs, followed by Toms River East (1519), Toms River North (1509) and Point Pleasant High (1506).
Three year's worth of state report cards can be found on app.com's Data Universe: http://php.app.com/sat06web/search.php
Also worthy of note: three of Monmouth County's magnet schools finished among the top six statewide in highest average SAT scores. High Technology H.S. was first, with a combined average score of 2038 - 683 in verbal, 693 in math and 662 in writing. All of the top six schools were magnet schools. Millburn was No. 1 among the non-magnets, with a combined average SAT of 1864. The rest of the non-magnet top 10: Princeton Regional, Tenafly, West Windsor-Plainsboro, Holmdel (1764), Montgomery and West Windsor-Plainsboro, Northern Valley (Bergen), Glen Ridge and Chatham.
In Monmouth County, Rumson-Fair Haven (1671) had the second highest SATs of the non-magnets, followed by Marlboro (1668) and Freehold Borough (1622). In Ocean County, Point Pleasant Beach High School (1605) had the highest SATs, followed by Toms River East (1519), Toms River North (1509) and Point Pleasant High (1506).
Three year's worth of state report cards can be found on app.com's Data Universe: http://php.app.com/sat06web/search.php
posted by Randy Bergmann at 1:50 PM
26 Comments:
You can throw all the money you want at Asbury Park schools and it will, at best, only produce marginal improvements. Far better, I think, to spend that money building new prison cells, which is where a significant portion of Asbury Park High School graduates will eventually wind up.
If you want to see improvements in test scores amongst Asbury Park students, encourage the parents of those students not to have so many children out of wedlock. By the time the current AP students reach first grade, they are already damaged beyond the ability of the public schools to repair.
Children born to single parent homes are far, far more likely to be raised in poverty. The correlation between being raised in poverty and poor academic performance (or one's proclivity to engage in crime) is well established. Ergo, having children out of wedlock is the cause of the problem.
Asbury Park suffers state sponsored segregation. Note well - state sponsored.
A ruling be the Commish of Education in the 1990's allowed for "reverse busing." The white kids that are supposed to be in Asbury Park are bused away, leaving the Black kids segregated.
Unfortunately there is no political will to reverse the ruling and bring the white kids back (absent a federal lawsuit).
The better solution is to close Asbury Park High School and split the students up in the neighboring districts (Squan, Wall, Neptune, Ocean, Long Branch, Shore and Red Bank Regional.
State sponsored segregation? Asbury Park is a separate town and a separate school district. And its been that way since Bud Abbott went to school in Asbury Park many decades ago. No one is forced to live in Asbury Park and white children are most certainly not being bused out of Asbury simply because they are white. If an AP resident wants to move to Rumson in order to have his kids attend Rumson schools, then they he is free to buy a home in Rumson. There's no segregation.
Incidentally, how is busing white kids into Asbury Park going to make the black kids there any smarter?
You're wrong, anonymous. The sending districts to Asbury Park is every town from Belmar to Deal, excluding Loch Arbor but including Interlaken.
In case you don't know, those are primarily white towns, and all those white kids are supposed to be in Asbury Park High School.
After the ruling in the 1990's, all the white kids in those towns got bused to Red Bank Regional. That's why I call it "reverse busing," they were busing kids away from a their district, not to their district.
Why bus them away from their district? To segregate them from the Black kids.
As to your last sentence, you seem to be making the case for segregation. I don't think you meant to do that.
There is a an advantage for the students from economically depressed families to elbow with the richer families.
To separate all those poor kids (as Randy's post points out) has a very negative affect on their outlook.
This state-sponsored segregation needs to end, and I hope Randy does more than post on his blog about it. He should editorialize about it in the paper.
Let's be fair with some of the facts. It is not only white students who are bused to Red Bank Regional and other high schools in the area, but also many black and students from other ethnic backgrounds decide to leave Asbury for many reasons. Those who are left in Asbury are those who want to graduate from Asbury, those who do not have the test scores to be accepted at another high school, or those whose parents do not care. Even if they decided to end the "busing" to Red Bank, most of those students, who were "bused," would not attend Asbury. Their parents would pay tution at another public or private school to avoid the Asbury Park School system. The parents who have the means will do everything possible for their students to avoid Asbury. The goal of the Asbury park school system should be to increase the quality of education so that students want to attend Asbury not Red Bank or another school. There are many schools in this country with the same student population as Asbury who are able to succed. Asbury should also strive for this. However, they have too many problems at the top for that to start happening.
justifiedright.com
Actually, we have editorialized on the topic. The most recent was Dec. 3. It follows:
The state's proposed new school funding formula doesn't address the two basic problems: the misguided notion that more money will solve everything, and the adverse impact clustering children disadvantaged by race and class has on educational performance.
One of the most glaring failures of the legislative committee studying public school funding reform was the absence of any recommendations for reducing spending. In fact, it proposed pumping an additional $1 billion into the state's bloated educational system next year.
Perhaps worse, it failed to acknowledge the role New Jersey's de facto school segregation has played in both the inequity of school funding and the grossly uneven educational results. It had a chance to address both problems -- equalizing school aid and educational opportunities -- by recommending wide-scale regionalization and consolidation of school districts. But it decided to take the easy way out: Throw more money at the problem.
The legislative committee studying government consolidation also backed off bold reforms. But it did suggest creating a pilot county school district. Monmouth County should step forward. It would be an ideal place to test the hypothesis that school district consolidation would save money and raise test scores of the disadvantaged. Monmouth County is loaded with small school districts ripe for consolidation. And it has enough wealth and resources to easily absorb the students now floundering in underachieving districts, including one of the state's most dysfunctional -- Asbury Park.
The committee's Democratic members and the state legislative leadership have been thumping their chests over a plan they say will produce greater financial equity among school districts. But they've offered no specifics and no clues as to how they intend to pay for it. And the plan ignores the fact that the flawed Abbott funding scheme -- and the huge amounts of money that have been poured into the poor-performing urban schools -- was a response necessitated by the unequal educational opportunities afforded by New Jersey's highly segregated schools. Instead, legislators have again chosen to pay blood money to keep the state's schools segregated.
A study by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University earlier this year again confirmed the state's standing as one of the most segregated in the nation. On most segregation measures, New Jersey ranks fifth or sixth. Only 25 percent of black public school students in New Jersey attend schools in which whites are in the majority. That's worse than Mississippi (26 percent), Louisiana and Texas (27 percent), and Georgia and Alabama (30 percent).
Only 28 percent of Latino students in New Jersey are enrolled in schools in which whites constitute the majority. Only four states have lower percentages -- California, Texas, New Mexico and New York.
If Monmouth County officials don't volunteer to become the pilot county, state education commissioner Lucille Davy should take it upon herself to throw a lifeline to the children trapped in the Asbury Park school district. She should carve out a regional district from neighboring towns and develop a plan to distribute children from Asbury Park into other schools -- perhaps turning one or more of the city's schools into magnet or specialty schools.
The Abbott districts aren't working. The school funding formula isn't working. And despite the legislative committee's bluster about a new, equitable funding formula that will better serve the needs of all schoolchildren, it doesn't address the two basic problems: the notion that more money will solve everything, and the adverse impact clustering children disadvantaged by race and class has on educational performance.
New Jersey's constitution is just one of two in the nation that specifically prohibits segregation in the schools. Instead of pouring more money into the state's poorest and most segregated districts, it should start talking about ways to desegregate them. It would save money, improve academic achievement and give more than lip service to the notion that all kids deserve equal educational opportunities.
No, Ray, it doesn't and I'll give you one example why it doesn't make sense.
In 1965, and at the dawn of LBJ's "war on poverty," far more black Americans were living in poverty than are living in poverty today. If, as you suggested, poverty causes far more children to be born into single-parent households, then surely we would expect to see a drop in the number of black children born into single-parent households as black poverty rates declined, right? Not so. In 1965 25% of black children born in this country were born into single-parent households. Today more than 75% of black children are born into single-parent households. In short, as black poverty decreased, black illegitimacy increased.
Randy thank you for posting the editorial from December. It was spot on regarding the segregation issue. My compliments to you.
Anonymous – I have no problem with people paying for their kids to go to private school; I favor it. However friend, that’s not what is going on with Asbury Park High School. They are busing the white kids out of their home public school and into a different public school. That’s why it is state-sponsored segregation.
I graduated from Asbury Park High School before the ruling that segregated it. Being from Asbury’s West Side, it helped me to sit in a class next to the Judge’s son from Deal, the Doctor’s son from Interlaken and the Lawyer’s son from Avon. I thought if my school was good enough for people who had choices, then I could be proud of my school.
Today, those High Schoolers are old enough to know that they have been segregated. It creates a terrible pall over their outlook and crushes their spirit to know that they have been separated. I’m embarrassed that I live in State where we are doing that to children.
Politically Asbury Park is a doughnut hole. It votes as much as 4 to 1 Democrat, but because of it’s district, its state senator and assemblymen are Republicans. Republicans have no power in Trenton to do anything, so any scraps those guys are going to fight for is not likely to be anything blockbuster for Asbury Park.
As for Democrats, so few people are going to the polls in Asbury Park that they are ignoring it completely. Less than 2000 people show at polls on election day. When I was growing up here it was closer to 3 times that amount.
The powers that be are throwing $59 million yearly at Asbury Park in Abbott money, so they can claim they are helping, and ignore the segregation issue. To do that, they have to ignore that only 14% of the 11th graders are testing proficient in math. Even $59 million won’t help when 86% of your students need attention at the same time.
As I’ve pointed out, this doughnut hole is not going to garner the political support to overturn the Commissioner’s ruling and bring the white kids back (absent a constitutional lawsuit challenging the segregation).
There are about 480 kids in APHS. We graduate about 90. We should close the school and break up the students between Manasquan, Wall, Neptune, Ocean, Long Branch, Shore and Red Bank Regional. If each school takes 15 students per grade, that won’t have a big impact on those schools, and each child will instantly be in a much better learning environment. Also, we can lose an Abbot district.
The alternative is to continue the moral outrage of segregation, but that’s going to continue to cost you $59 million a year in Abbot money. Time to make a choice.
I do not disagree that Asbury is a failing school, but while your suggestion of closing down Asbury Park High school or ending the “segregation” seems like a solution, it will only hide the problem and hurt more students in the area. There are about six hundred students in Asbury Park High according to the school report card for 2005-6 so there would be an infusion of about 85 students into each of the high schools. The suspension rate at Asbury is 40-50% which could either mean that a small amount of students are suspended all of the time or a larger amount of students are suspended part of the time. Many of those who have been suspended and other students will encounter more discipline issues at the new high schools since those schools will not tolerate the same actions that are allowed to pass at Asbury without discipline. Such interruptions can wreck the educational process of the other 20 students in the classroom. It only takes one or two students in each classroom to derail the educational process. Also most likely a large percentage of students from Asbury will be in the same class due to the need to remediate them. This will still cause the feeling of segregation that you believe they feel now.
The educational research indicates that by the time a student reaches high school and is so far behind, as in the case of most Asbury students, they are lost. There is really nothing a school can do to pull them up to a passing HSPA level. It is horrible to say, but that is what the research indicates. If you split those kids up into different schools they would still only pass at a 20% rate but their numbers would be hidden by all of the others students in the school who pass. If all of the students who are from the sending districts return to Asbury Park, the overall school passing rate for HSPA would be increased. However, those same 80% who would have stayed in Asbury and failed would still fail. The politicians would state that with a 60% passing rate that Asbury is a better school, but those same kids would continue to fail.
You do have an interesting idea about disbanding Asbury Park high school but you do it too late. The students at the high school have already had their academic careers ruined by the time they have reached the high school. You need to do it earlier. There are about 500 kids in kindergarten and first grade. Those students should be sent out of Asbury to the elementary schools in the districts that you have mentioned. The research clearly indicates that the most profound effect you can have on children are when they are in the lower grades. You can save those children. You continue to keep those children out of the Asbury Park system until they graduate and I think you will see that those children will do as well as their new found peers in the schools. Waiting until they reach high school is just dooming them for failure.
Trust me anonymous there are less than 500 students in APHS.
I'm pretty certain you would not be arguing for the unconstitutional and immoral act of segregation if your name wasn't anonymous.
I don't know what you know of educaiton as a science, but I can tell you that putting the students in a better learning environment will help them learn better.
It's like 2 plus 2 equals 4, friend.
Justifiedright,
I suggest you reread my post. I was not arguing for segregation, but I questioned whether it was the cause of the educational problems at Asbury Park and whether if you divided the students to other schools if that would solve the problem or just hide it. However, you may believe what you like.
I agree that the learning environment is very important to the educational process. A student who is trying to attend school in a war zone will have great difficulty on account of the learning environment. However, the educational research indicates that at the high school level if the child is so far behind, as they are in Asbury, nothing can really be done unless you are willing to spend a lot more than 59 millions dollars. Your solution will only hide the problem. You need to save the kids when they are young.
Your idea is like many ideas that are brought forward about education. It is well intentioned, but will most likely worsen the condition. The research is out there how to make an effective school, the problem is that there is no political will in Asbury nor at the State level to actually accomplish it.
For the record, there are more than one "anonymous" posters to this thread.
Anonymous (whichever anonymous person you are): I’m calling shenanigans on your assertion that there is any study suggesting by they time someone is in high school they are a lost cause. You’re flat out making that up. There is no evidence of that whatsoever.
Anecdotally, through my junior year in high school I was failing completely. Today I’m Senior Partner in a law firm with offices in 2 counties.
Thank goodness you weren’t running the education system back then to convince me I was a lost cause.
I am very happy that you have succeeded when you were failing in your junior year. But as you concede it is anecdote. Many people assume that because they did it, others can, it is usually not the case. I would not be surprised that you were not failing from grades 4-11. You had the prior knowledge to succeed. I would suggest that the students in Asbury who are failing in their Junior year do not have the prior knowledge that you did at that age. That is a key problem.
As you reread my last post, I concede there is something that can be done at the high school level, but you must be willing to spend more than 59 million dollars to save those children. It would require class sizes to be reduced to a level not seen in NJ to give the students individual attention, students would have to go to school for 12 months a year, and academic coaches would have to be hired for the students. Incidentally, even if you wanted to close down Asbury, these interventions would still be needed at the seven high schools you mentioned. A change in the learning environment would help everyone, but it would only provide meaningful help for those students who are already succeeding or at the cusp.
You make the claim that I am making up the academic research. I suggest you read Van der Gaag and Tan's work on the importance of learning at an earlier age and the economic cost if learning is interrupted. There is more research out there but I do not have the citations at my fingertips. What educational research do you have to back up your idea? I would be interested to read the literature and change my opinion.
By the way if I was in charge of the education system, it would not be at the point it is now. The money would have been spent wisely so that the resources would have been focused at the earlier ages so you would have more children learning at the high school level. So if there was a student like you having difficulty in their junior year, you could focus the resources on those individual students. It is near impossible to focus on 600 students. Your idea is similar to trying to save people when they have a late stage lung cancer. My idea is trying to get them to quit smoking. Which one is more effective? Asbury Park can be turned around but it will take five or six years to do it.
Van der Gaag and Tan's thesis is that early childhood development translates to later economic benefit. They therefore argue for more public funds be spent on early childhood learning.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in their work suggests that high school age students are a lost cause.
As I look back on your post (if I'm writing to the same "anonymous") you said they were already lost by first grade. Citing Van der Gaag and Tan does not support your conclusion.
Your most recent post now suggests that there is something that can be done for the kids at Asbury High school. We can move on to the discussion of what to do.
I'm calling veto on any plan that keeps the Black kids segregated. I'm no Dr. King, but I don't have to be to know that segregation is morally wrong, not to mention unconstitutional.
And seperate but equal being long since proved dertrimental, segregagtion is bad for eduction, too.
"I graduated from Asbury Park High School before the ruling that segregated it. Being from Asbury's west side, it helped me to sit in a class next to the Judge's son from Deal, the Doctor's son from Iterlaken and the Lawyer's son from Avon. I thought if my school was good enough for people who had choices, then I could proud of my school." -- Justifiedright.com (aka Thomas De Seno)
Speaking of choices, when you choose to buy a home, you bought a home in lilly white Howell Township, right? Tell me, Mr. De Seno, would you have a problem busing children from, say, Howell Township into Asbury's public schools?
Anonymouns you again miss the point. The kids in the Howell school district remain in their district.
In Asbury Park, the state government is busing the white kids out of their home district. See the difference?
Personalize this if you want - but by doing so you ignore the issue.
Why not address the issue - the white kids are being bused out of the Asbury Park school district.
Justifiedright,
Van der Gaag and Tag suggest that it is the most cost effective to intervene at the earliest levels which supports my point that the students need to have improved education at the lowest levels. However, I will add some more research if you like. Clay's work supports the concept that the earlier you reach the students the greater chance there is for success for the students in literacy which of course is crucial in all courses. Walpole and McKenna have argued that eventually the gap between the best and worst readers widen until it becomes unbridgeable. Stanovich, of the Matthew effect fame, is in the same camp. The research indicates you need to save the children when they are young. Please reread my post again, I never stated that they are lost at first grade. This is the time that the gap is the narrowest between the best and worst students and when the worst students can be brought to speed. The later you wait the less chance you have to succeed. I want the focus to be on the early grades and then to continue to focus on the students as they progress. It will take years but the Asbury Park schools could be turned around.
However, I do not believe you want to capitulate that to me so I will answer your question about what needs to be done to the high school students, although I am still waiting for your research to back up your concepts.
I do not believe your idea of splitting up the students or forcing all of the students back into Asbury will solve anything but just hide the persistent failures of the Asbury Park elementary system. Look at their GEPA and ASK scores. If all of the students were forced back into Asbury, the HSPA scores will rise. This is because most of the students have received a solid educational foundation at their elementary schools such as Deal and Interlaken. For arguments sake lets say there are 100 students in the current junior class at Asbury and only 20 pass the HSPA. If 100 students who should attend Asbury but do not return to Asbury, most likely they will pass the HSPA (This assumption is based on the reality that no high school will accept a student who has low GEPA scores on account of NCLB, so if they had a low GEPA score they would already be at Asbury). The passing rate will rocket from 20% to 60%. The only problem is that those 80 kids who failed before will still fail.
If you split those kids up to other schools they will still fail. The schools that you have selected have much higher passing rates. However, these schools are taking in much better prepared students than Asbury students and that is the reason why they are passing at higher rates. If you switch the student population from Shore to Asbury and vice a versa, then Shore would be a failing school and Asbury would be passing school. There is no silver bullet. Also many of these schools are not equipped to take so many students who need remediation. Yes, 20 students per grade is a lot of students. They only have to remediate a very small amount of students and their remediation is less severe than what is required. I do not believe your plan is tenable in either way. For Asbury to change they must change their educational philosophies from the lower levels to the high school.
However, let me answer the question that you posed about how to help the high school students without early intervention. It will cost a lot of money to try to raise test scores in Asbury. First, you will have to double the regular teaching staff at Asbury. According to the school report card the average class size for the junior class is 30 students. That needs to be halved. These students need more individual attention that can be provided in such a large class. In addition, about 20 reading specialists would have to be hired to work with students and staff to promote literacy strategies for the students in a small group setting. This is a skill that is lacking. Schools would have to become a 12 month affair at Asbury. It is near impossible for students who have a very poor grasp of mathematics when they enter the 9th grade to be able to take enough Algebra and Geometry to pass the Math portion of the HSPA without a significant amount of remediation. There is not enough time in the regular school year for that to happen. Unless, you want to cut all subjects out of the curriculum and extend the school day which will eliminate the sports programs. Finally, the school would have to hire a tremendous amount of truant officers to make sure students are in class. Asbury Park has an attendance problem that interferes with the learning process. The kids need to be in school to be able to learn. I believe that even if you sent the students to other schools that attendance problem would still be present. As I stated earlier, high school students could be saved but the amount of time and money that would be needed would not be supported by the local and state governments.
Just for one note of clarification, I am not the anonymous of the previous post. Personally, I do not care where you live or what you do. I prefer ideas rather than ad hominem attacks.
anon1
All of the research you site says it is beneficial to give quality in education early. I agree. You however have to agree that not one of them says at any point, that it is too late for someone to learn. Please concede that.
Perhaps I'm arguing with the wrong guy. Someone named anonymous said that once Asbury kids are in first grade they are "beyond repair." Maybe it wasn't you (people should at least give themselves some kind of name when they post).
Interlaken has no grade school by the way (or any school for that matter). It's in Asbury Park's district.
Do I really need to give you more proof that segregation brings down a school beyond the example of Asbury Park itself? Take a look at the test scores before and after the segregation even for the poor black students and you'll find all the proof you need. See also Brown v Bd of Education.
Let me highlight two parts of your argument where you contradict yourself.
You say my proposal to move the Asbury High School students to other schools won't work because:
"…many of these schools are not equipped to take so many students who need remediation. Yes, 20 students per grade is a lot of students. They only have to remediate a very small amount of students and their remediation is less severe than what is required."
Then you say this:
"However, let me answer the question that you posed about how to help the high school students without early intervention."
You go on to suggest ways to help the High Schoolers in Asbury improve.
So let's compare your arguments.
First you assert that the other 7 high schools couldn't possibly find the resources to deal with 15 or 20 kids per grade who need special attention.
However, Asbury Park can handle a situation where 90 or more students per grade need special attention.
You contradict yourself to Asbury's detriment.
We Asbury Parker's are used to that kind of thing. It's quite typical for the rest of Monmouth County to expect Asbury to handle every moral obligation they don't want to face.
Marlboro Hospital closes? Dump them in Asbury. County needs a methadone clinic? Dump it in Asbury. State needs a place for probationers? Put them in Asbury. Homeless shelter? Dump it in Asbury. AIDS shelter? Dump it in Asbury. Have a non-profit to operate? Put it in Asbury. Section 8 tenants? Put them in Asbury even if the rent is $1,800 per month (we have many at that price). Another so-called church that won't pay taxes (we have 39 in a square mile)? Put it in Asbury. Segregate the black kids? Keep 'em in Asbury.
All of those things that were put in Asbury were put here by people from outside of Asbury. Everyone has been dumping on us for years. Tell me - how nice would your neighborhood be if I dumped all that on your street?
Keep your eye on Asbury Park. The middle class, gone for 30 years, is making a comeback. We're starting to say no to this kind of treatment. We’re fighting back.
Get ready for a homeless shelter full of pedophiles next to your house instead of in Asbury.
"Keep your eye on Asbury Park. The middle class, gone for 30 years, is making a comeback. We're starting to say no to this kind of treatment. We're fighting back." -- Justifiedright.com (Thomas De Seno, Esq.)
What do you mean "we?" Check your drivers license, Mr. De Seno. You live in lilly white Howell. You may be proud of your Asbury roots, but when it came time for you and your wife Lisa to buy a home, you sure didn't buy one in Asbury Park. You may be proud of your alma mater, but when it came time to educate your children, you made sure they didn't attend Asbury Park schools. Since you avoided the question above, let me ask it again: Would you, Mr. De Seno, have a problem with a proposal that would bus school children in Howell Township into Asbury Park schools? Would you have a problem busing Asbury Park students into Howell Township schools?
Incidentally, with respect to this "fight" that you spoke of, do you or anyone from your firm stand to financially gain from this so-called fight? Do you or anyone in your firm represent Asbury Park in any way? Do you represent anyone who may file a lawsuit over this so-called segregation that you speak of in Asbury Park?
To Anonymous (the one who posted above, not the other one):
You apparantly don't know everything about my personal life.
I do own property in Asbury Park. I'm a taxpayer there. I also rent office space there. I create jobs there. I started the Merchant Guild there. I've been on several boards there. I'm a historian there. I fundraise for the PAL there.
I think I have the right to be concerned about the place. I'll bet I'm more a part of the "we" of Asbury Park than you.
Even if I had none of that, since the school system is an Abbott, everyone in the State of New Jersey has the right to say "we" when speaking of the Asbury Park School System. Taxpayers around New Jersey contribute more money to the Asbury Park School System than everyone living in Asbury Park.
I did answer your question, but I'll do it again, this time using smaller words so you can understand this time:
No, Howell kids should not be bused to Asbury Park, and here is why:
The kids in the Howell district are going to school in their own designated Howell District; they are not being bused away.
The kids in the Asbury Distict are being bused away from their designated district in Asbury to an entirely different public school district.
I'll speak slowly: Do...you...see...the...difference?
No my law firm has not made money off the fight to bring Asbury back. I've logged thousands of volunteer hours,and I always charge Asbury Park people and business less maoney than others when they hire me.
But I still have to take flack from someone with so much to hide he won't tell us his name.
By the way - do you favor the segregation?
Justifiedright,
I do not have access to the test scores of Asbury Park other than a few years so I can say nothing on that point. Although, rarely does a school fail on account of one reason alone.
However, I will not concede your point about splitting up the school will improve student performance. I wait for actual documented research to change my opinion. Brown vs. Board of Education is very important, but the research that was used is outdated and I believe I read that it was poor research, although it was a just decision. I believe what you suggest will at best will hide the problems and at worst affect the learning of others in a negative way. Also, the breaking up of a high school can cause the town to lose a sense of community. If Asbury recovers their educational system, then it will be an achievement in which the city take pride.
I did not contradict myself. I merely answered your question on how I would deal with the problem at the High school. I did not say how much of a success it would be. I imagine if all that was implemented the passing rate at Asbury would hover in the 40% and still be a failing school. If the state provided the resources at the seven other high schools, I would predict the same success. Of course there would be added cost to bus the kids. (Incidentally, you should examine the policies that allow a few bus companies to have a monopoly.) It would be much cheaper to intervene at an earilier age with better results.
I will concede that it is never too late to learn. But, when a student has been failing for a decade in school, there are many hurdles that need to be overcomed and your chances of success are very low. Lost cause is a bit of hyperbole, but it has been stated in the research in a more nuanced way. Walpole and McKenna have stated that when there is not early intervention in the primary grades the gap "widens each year until it is unbridgeable." I have heard some argue that the “unbridgeable” moment is in middle school.
I am glad that you conceded the point about early intervention. In a perfect world the board of education and the administration at Asbury would use the Abbot money to provide early intervention and continue that intervention so that in 5-10 years you would have students clamoring to be enrolled in Asbury Park High. They also would try to fix the problems at the high school so that the environment would improve to help the students there. However, I think they are more interested in such academic pursuits as who will be the next football coach. I do not know if I will post again, but I enjoyed our exchange.
anon1 (the one who does not care where you live, although you really should have moved to Rumson if you wanted lily white.)
By the way I lived next to a section 8 tenant for about 7 years. She lived two doors down the road from me and there was also a sex offender across the street. No big deal either way.
Anon1 you seem to be a reasonable person.
Fun and enlightening to debate with you.
There is no segregation, Mr. De Seno. White students are not being bused out of Asbury Park and black families are free to move to Howell Township -- or anywhere else if they desire.
If students in municipalities other than Asbury Park are no longer attending Asbury Park schools, then so be it. If it is legally permissible for municipalities to divide into smaller and distinct municipalities, then the people in Allenhurt, Interlaken, Deal and elsewhere most certainly should be entirely free to say that they no longer wish to be associated with Asbury Park and/or its schools.
School districts are not marriages, and they exist only as long and to the extent that they serve the interests of those for whom they were created. You recongnized Asbury Park to be the dump that it is when you moved out and bought a home in Howell Township. You didn't want to raise your children there and you certainly didn't want to educate them in Asbury Park schools. Your hypocritical claims of attachment to Asbury Park notwithstanding ("We're fighting back."), when push came to shove, you voted with your feet and moved out of Asbury Park. The parents of school children in non-AP municipalites that once sent their children to Asbury schools should be free to do exactly what you did: Leave.
Say your name anonymous. I dare you.
Your post shows you know zero about AP.
The sending districts did not change, so your whole post shows your ignorance.
They are sending white kids out of the district they are in (Asbury) to a different district.
Say your name. I dare you.
I'm right here in the light of day chicken. Keep hiding in the shadows.
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