Morris District schools, Unity Charter School, get mixed grades on state report card

Students in the Morris School District began taking the controversial new PARCC standardized tests  on Tuesday. But the evaluations don’t stop there.

The Morris School District has received its annual report card from the state Department of Education, for the 2013-14 school year.

This blizzard of numbers attempts to compare schools across the state, and across schools of similar size and demographics.

Here is how Morristown High School, Frelinghuysen Middle School, and the Unity Charter School, which draws a big chunk of its funding from the Morris School District, stack up:

Morristown High School was deemed  “about average”  academically compared with schools statewide, and “lagging” a peer group that includes Columbia High School in Maplewood, Parsippany High School and Fort Lee High School, among others with demographics  the state considers similar to MHS.

(The link above lists all 30 peer schools.)

Graduation levels and “post-secondary readiness” also lag when compared to peers and statewide numbers, according to the NJ School Performance Report  for 2013-14.

On the plus side, the college- and career-readiness of  Morristown High pupils was ranked as “high” when compared with peer schools  and schools across New Jersey.

And the composite SAT score for MHS students (1,607)  surpassed the peer average (1,530) and the state average (1,513).

DEFINITIONS

There are five performance ratings — very high, high, average, lagging and significantly lagging.

Very High is defined as being equal to or above the 80th percentile. High Performance is between the 60th and 79.9th percentiles. Average Performance is within the 40th and 59.9th percentiles. Lagging Performance is between the 20th and 39.9th percentiles. Significantly Lagging Performance is equal to or below the 19.9th percentile

Here’s what the categories mean:

Academic Achievement:  This is a measurement of students’ content knowledge in language arts literacy and math. For high schools, this is based on the school’s proficiency rate — the sum of students scoring either “proficient” or “advanced proficient” on the NJ HSPA test (for elementary and middle schools, theNJ ASK test), divided by the number of valid test scores.

MHS outperforms 40 percent of schools statewide, and 25 percent of schools in its peer group, according to the state. The school is meeting 92 percent of its performance targets  in this area. Such targets are established by the federal government, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, explained  David Saenz, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

College and Career Readiness:  An attempt to predict future success in college and the workplace; for high schoolers, measures include taking college readiness tests such as the SAT, ACT or PSAT and “rigorous coursework” such as advanced placement courses in English, math, social studies and science.  (Factors for elementary/middle schools include chronic absenteeism, and how many students take Algebra I in eighth grade.)

MHS outperforms 64 percent of schools statewide, and 65 percent of schools from its peer group, while meeting 60 percent of its performance targets in this area.

Graduation and Post-Secondary: This measures the rate at which students graduate within four years, and the rate at which students drop out.

MHS outperforms 35 percent of schools statewide and 27 percent of schools from its peer group, while meeting 100 percent of its performance targets in this area, according to the state.

FRELINGHUYSEN MIDDLE SCHOOL, UNITY CHARTER SCHOOL

The Frelinghuysen Middle School’s academics were rated as about average, statewide, but high when compared to the school’s peer group.

FMS outperforms 51 percent of schools statewide, and 68 percent of schools with similar demographics, while meeting 29 percent of its Academic Achievement performance targets.

College and career readiness were rated as high when compared to schools across the state, and to its peers.

This middle school outperforms 64 percent of schools statewide and 71 percent of peer schools, while hitting  100 percent of its federal targets in this area.

But student growth– intellectual, not physical, as measured by year-to-year performance in math and literacy on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) tests — lags, both statewide and with peers,  according to the state.

FMS outperforms 31 percent of schools statewide and 34 percent of peer schools,  while meeting 100 percent of its performance targets in this area.

The K-8 Unity Charter School in Morris Township has wider discrepancies in its grades.

Although its academic performance is high when compared to schools across the state, outperforming 71 percent of them, it significantly lags when compared with its peers, besting only 15 percent of similar schools, the state maintains. Unity is meeting 75 percent of its academic performance targets.

Unity’s college and career readiness is high when compared to schools across the state (outperforming 60 percent of them) … but lags in comparison to its peers (outperforming 23 percent). The school is meeting half of its targets in this area.

Student growth is about average, statewide, outdoing 47 percent of schools.  But it lags its peers — which include the Chatham Middle School, the Long Valley Middle School and the Harding Township School — outperforming only 23 percent.  The state says Unity is meeting 100 percent of its targets in this category.

The Unity Charter School, which underwent a change in leadership last year, has 195 pupils and draws its $3 million budget from the Morris School District and other districts that send children there.

The Morris School District operates 10 schools serving 5,700 students from Morristown, Morris Township and (high school only) Morris Plains. Its present budget is $104 million.

Morris District School Board President Leonard Posey said last week that he had not yet had time to thoroughly review the state’s numbers. Officials from the district and high school have not responded to requests for comment. Unity Charter School Board President Robert Ghelli said he was reviewing Unity’s report card.

DRILLING DEEPER

These reports are crammed with statistics. Here is a snapshot of Morristown High School.

In 2013-14, MHS enrollment was 1,589 students– up from 1,351 two years earlier. (The high school is about to embark on a major expansion because of this trend.)  There are 833 males and 756 females.

Fifty-eight percent of students are white, 24 percent are Hispanic, 13 percent are black and 5 percent are Asian. (Numbers are rounded off.)

English is the primary language spoken at home by 90 percent of MHS students. Nine percent speak Spanish at home.

Some 424 students– or 27 percent–are considered economically disadvantaged.

Additionally, 198 students — 12 percent– are listed as having a disability. Eighty students — 5 percent–have limited proficiency in English.

Ninety-four percent of MHS students perform at a “proficiency” level or higher on the HSPA language arts test;  the percentage is 85 for the math version.  Performance on the language portion has improved over the last four years. Math performance dipped from the prior year.

While there was some improvement in Biology Competency, 61 percent of MHS students still are rated only “partially proficient” based on test scores.

The composite SAT score for MHS students was 1,607, surpassing the peer average of 1,530 and the state average of 1,513.

Morristown High’s graduation rate of 89 percent breaks down like this:  94 percent of white students graduate, followed by 82 percent for blacks, 77 percent for Hispanics, 80 percent for students with disabilities and 79 percent for economically disadvantaged students.

Some 83 percent of MHS graduates are in college 16 months after graduation. Four-out-of-five of them attend four-year colleges; the rest study at two-year schools.

Eighty-eight percent of white students at MHS go to college. The figure is 75 percent for Hispanics and 58 percent for blacks.  Sixty-five percent of economically disadvantaged students and 59 percent of students with disabilities go to college.

A normal school day is six hours and 47 minutes.  Ratios are one teacher per every 13 students, and one administrator per every 397 students.  Five percent of students were suspended at least once during the school year. No student was expelled in 2013-14, according to the report.

REPORT CARD FOR MORRISTOWN HIGH SCHOOL 2013-14

REPORT CARD FOR FRELINGHUYSEN MIDDLE SCHOOL 2013-14

REPORT CARD FOR UNITY CHARTER SCHOOL 2013-14

SEARCH ALL SCHOOLS

EXPLANATION OF RATINGS