Hoboken Board Trustee and President Ruth McAllister (Tyroler) is fond of saying how much better the Hoboken School District is today than when she was first elected to the Hoboken Board of Education in the spring of 2009. In a few previous posts, independent, objective, and independent evidence was presented that might question some of the Board President's claims. Anyone who is interested in details that challenge her claims should Click Here and Click Here.
Now there is additional data indicating Ms. McAllister (Tyroler) may want to reconsider her self congratulatory end of meeting remarks. Last month we learned the QSAC DPR in Instruction and Program was a 45 out of 100 and marked the Hoboken Board's third consecutive year of failing to pass state mandated criteria for this DPR (recall, Trustee McAllister (Tyroler) was the Chair of the District's Curriculum Committee for the past 4+ years). Now we read about some additional analysis done by schooldigger.com, a site which ranks schools and school districts based on their most recently reported test scores. The test scores are calculated by taking the average math and English scores across all grades and adding them together for a combined score. District rankings are calculated by averaging the rank percentile of the schools within each district.
In this schooldigger.com analysis the Hoboken Public School District is ranked 490th out of 558 public school districts in New Jersey (bottom 12%). This evidently is the "improvement" after 5 years of leadership by Board President McAllister (Tyroler) and her Kids First political group.
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| From schooldigger.com |
The ranking should come as little surprise. In November of 2011 the school district was declared a District in Need of Improvement by the NJ Department of Education for the first time in district history after over 30 months of McAllister's (Tyroler) and Kids First leadership.
Failing scores on INSTRUCTION AND PROGRAM, a district labeled a District in Need of Improvement by the State Department of Education, and a ranking of 490 out of 558 must be difficult to sell as "improvement" to an informed public. Even more challenging must be the recent ranking of Hoboken as the 9th most violent school district in the State of New Jersey by Patch.com. But, it seems even that ranking was not a one time occurrence as we examine the multi-year trend of violence and vandalism in the Hoboken School District under Kids First and McAllister's (Tyroler) leadership:
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Again, notions of improvement can be subjective and riddled with opinions and spin. Sometimes presenting independent, objective, and non-partisan data depicts a circumstance or presents a counter narrative that differs from campaign promises or ego driven defensive rants.
Taking a page out of Ms. McAllister's (Tyroler)
playbook, we read this in a recent Hoboken Reporter cover story:
Monica Stromwall, who recently took over the chairmanship of the school board’s curriculum committee, defended the Hoboken’s school administration.
“Test scores are always a concern in any district, but steady progress is being made,” she said. The district’s steady application of consistent assessment and intervention programs are working and we will continue to support this.”
Here is one graph challenging the statement that "steady progress is made".....
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| ...steady progress is being made |
