Hoboken High School Drops 48 Spots in 2018 NJ Monthly's Bi-Annual Ranking of New Jersey Public and Charter High Schools to 260th out of 305

Hoboken High School- Hoboken, NJ 

In 2015 a new superintendent was hired by the Hoboken Board of Education and inherited a high school ranked 212th in the bi-annual NJ Monthly ranking of New Jersey High Schools.  Jump ahead a few years and the 2018 NJ Monthly rankings of 305 Public High Schools have been released. The rankings are comprehensive, using sound statistical and psychometric weightings to objectively evaluate the quality of high schools in NJ. Charter schools are public schools— free to all students who attend—and are included among the 305 ranked high schools. 

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Hoboken High School is now ranked 260th out of New Jersey’s 305 public high schools. The NJ Monthly Report indicates that the school has an 8:1 student-teacher ratio (among the lowest in the state), offers 11 AP/IB courses, and about 40% of student take at least one art course. Unfortunately, the data also indicates that only 15% of the student scored at or above 530 of the Math SAT (53rd percentile) and 37% scored at or above 480 (31st percentile) in reading and writing. 

Hoboken Board of Education Meeting - Circa 2017

This compilation of data by New Jersey Monthly further supports the general thesis that black students are not leaving Hoboken High School college ready. Hispanic students are not leaving Hoboken High School college ready. White students are not leaving Hoboken High School college ready. Free or Reduced Lunch Qualified students are not leaving Hoboken High School college ready. Medium family income students are not leaving Hoboken High School college ready. This is also evident by the fact that less than 75% of Hoboken High School students are enrolled in college 16 months after high school according to NJ Monthly. 

Perhaps most telling of the instruction and leadership offered at Hoboken High School is with the Advanced Placement (AP) students. While 54.5% of 11th and 12th graders took an AP/IB course and 68% took at least one AP/IB test for college credit, only 6.9% of students scored at least a 3 on the AP or a 4 on the IB. Such scores are required to receive college credit at most accredited four year colleges and universities in the United States. Few other schools in the state have such high percentages of students taking an AP/IB course while failing to receive any college credit for their effort. 

Various "reform" members of the
Hoboken Board of Education Between 2008-2018

The current ranking represents a drop of 48 spots since 2016. Superintendent Johnson took over leadership of the school district in 2015. This is a significant and non trivial drop in quality of an already struggling high school. As a point of reference, Hoboken High School was ranked 139th in 2008 under the leadership of Superintendent Raslowsky, Principal Lorraine Cella, and a non-“reform” Board of Education. Back then Hoboken High School had 1) Similar percentages of Black and Latino/a students, 2) a higher percentage of students qualifying for Free or Reduced Lunch, 3) higher enrollment and 4) less money per student in inflation adjusted dollars. What did it have? It had no excuses. It had quality leadership. And it didn't have a self proclaimed "reform" Board of Education.

Despite antidotes and unsubstantiated claims of “improvement” and “excellence” - try as they may- the Hoboken Board of Education, Superintendent Johnson, and the educational leadership and staff at Hoboken High School are failing to offer a quality secondary education as assessed by NJ Monthly for the students and families of Hoboken. Any claim otherwise is either made in ignorance, intentional misrepresentation, or magical thinking. 

This is what New Jersey Monthly had to say about Hoboken High School BEFORE a self proclaimed political group under the guise of "reform" took complete control of the Hoboken public schools....read what NJ Monthly had to say about Hoboken High School before the district was in the hands of "reform" and before it ever hired a public relations firm: 

NJ Monthly's 2008 Description of Hoboken HS under Non-Reform Leadership
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Here is the complete list of NJ Monthly's 2018 rankings of NJ's Top Public High Schools

  Full Schools Chart v2 by Anthony Petrosino on Scribd

Data Supported Accusations Concerning Leadership of the Hoboken Public School District

The following are a portion of the public comments that were made at the October 9, 2018 meeting of the Hoboken Board of Education by a former parent and concerned citizen as well as a response to the comments. The issue at hand relates around Black and Latino/a students in the Hoboken School District. 




TRANSCRIPT:

Citizen: Where does Hoboken Public School District Stack Up in a state that is the 6th most segregated school system in the country and the 4th most segregated amongst students with disabilities:
1.) The racial achievement gap is three times wider than the state average
2.) Connors Elementary school is the Jim Crow School and the Middle and High School uses classroom segregation and racial tracking.
3.) The District has failed every stress test in equity, student progress, and college and career readiness according to the NJ Department of Education and all third party assessments
4.) The District is cooking the books on high school graduation rates by abusing credit recovery and summer school to pass kids along from grade to grade without making up at least 2 years or more that were lost as result the district abandoning the Middle School for 7 years.
5.) The District is disproportionately classifying and using discipline punitively against low income black and Latino students by labeling them behaviorally impaired to get additional monies from the state and federal government. Students with special needs
can receive up to $60k in additional funding for services but instead the district places many of these students on home instruction for months at a time while the balance of the additional dollars allocated are redistributed to kids that aren’t entitled to it.
6.) Dr. Johnson stated in budget presentations that she would use ESEA grant money intended to support needy students, to fund afters chool programs at Brandt which didn’t have a single Black student in the incoming Kindergarten, has a 75%+ white student population, and a low income student population that is less than 5%.

Over the last two years:

Dr. Johnson lied to me about her support for a diversity inclusion committee at two NAACP meetings, several personal text messages, in person meetings, and emails. This was evident in her lack of follow through over a two year span, her lack of preparedness at in person meetings, her to decision marginalize my daughter’s experience, her half baked effort at creating a equity report that didn’t present an honest and thorough assessment of racial disparity data and her insistence on blaming the victim by claiming, on the public record, that race and class are the reasons for why Black and Brown children are failing and not the district. 

She also blamed the State of NJ for not accommodating a hyper segregated district by assigning different District Factor Groups to racially and socioeconomically different schools. In addition, Dr. Johnson lied about racial tracking. She has yet to answer the questions about the effectiveness of the home instruction program or how the district mitigates racial bias in classifying low income black and brown students. Dr. Johnson did not follow through on her recommendations in the equity report. In fact, it the Equity Report is not longer available on the website. Dr. Johnson is simply sending a message to all Black and Latino families that she doesn’t care about your child’s future.

Under Dr. Johnson the high school dropped another 40 spots on to the bottom 10% in performance state wide. The District failed again QSAC for the 8 the straight year in teacher instruction and programming And an overwhelming majority of low income Black and Latino students are still not reading, writing, and doing math grade level, let alone prepared for college or a career. 

The Board (of Education) rewarded Dr. Johnson’s atrocious record by giving her a 5 year extension after her first 2 years. This BOE continues to not be reflective of the entire student body. To this end, this BOE allowed members like John Madigan to make racist statements without accountability for referring to the black community as “The Coloreds” a derogatory racist term that hasn’t been used to describe the black community since the Civil Rights Era. You said nothing when the Teacher’s Union President Gary Enrico is allowed to use dog whistle racism to describe Black parents for demanding equity and a high quality education as “ Same Clowns different time”. You used a Black mother with an alleged open DYFS case to mock Black representation on the Board and use as a publicity stunt for your so called commitment to diversity and inclusion. Under the pressure, this Black mother lost her children and has allegedly been in jail since mid summer trying to fight for kids.

This BOE is intentionally destroying a vast majority of Black and Latino children’s lives by using them to get additional aid and grant money, discard them like trash, and then blame them for not persevering enough through systems of injustice. You are sadly mistaken if you think we are alone in wanting change and justice for the kids you refuse to represent.

Board President: Thank you——any comments in response?…..no— If there is no other business before the Board, is there a motion to adjoin? 

Board Trustee: Wait one second… I find it highly disgusting to get up to criticize and make lies about the superintendent up…and that…its not suppose to be that way. If you have facts about issues I would like—everyone would like to see them. But to get up and say stuff about the superintendent that just to say that is someone doesn’t like the superintendent, and had a bad experience and then just paints over the makes up lies and its suppose to be ok for us not to say anything. I’m a big boy, I can take anything coming. I was born and raised here before Hoboken was fashionable. I was here during riots, I was here when it was tough, I was here when they were burnt down- so, I don’t have to stick up for myself. But I’ll be dammed if I can going to sit here when the superintendent is being called all these lies and facts and its a disgusting thing - thats the end of the statement 

Gavel 

voice from audience

Board President: No, the public comment section is over, thank you — motion to adjoin? 

Motion to ajoin 

Meeting ends 

2018 Mathematics PARCC Scores for Hoboken High School and Middle School Released- Bottom 4% in 7th and 8th Grade Mathematics, Bottom 7% in Algebra I

The 2018 New Jersey PARCC scores were released earlier this month. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium of states that collaboratively developed a common set of assessments to measure student achievement and preparedness for college and careers. A full analysis is forthcoming but here are the scores for Middle and High School Mathematics for the Hoboken School District. 

7th Grade Mathematics Score: 721 Rank: 485 out of 505 NJ Schools 
8th Grade Mathematics Score: 701 Rank: 454 out of 473 NJ Schools 
Algebra I Score: 722 Rank: 472 out of 509 NJ Schools 
Geometry Score: 720 Rank: 280 out of 332 NJ Schools 
Algebra II Score: 714 Rank: 214 out of 315 NJ Schools 

These scores triangulate with past years PARCC scores as well as a recent low ranking of Hoboken High School by the New Jersey Department of Education in which the school scored a 22.7 out of 100 and ranked in the 17th percentile of high schools in the state and 8 straight years of failing the NJDOE QSAC monitoring in the Instruction and Program DPR. It should be noted these results do not occur for lack of financial support for the traditional Hoboken Public Schools (see Figure 1 below). 

Summary: the Hoboken School District Mathematics PARCC scores for 7th grade through high school are far below state average. How low is actually noteworthy. The District  schools now rank in the lower 4% of NJ schools in 7th and 8th Grade Mathematics, the bottom 7% in Algebra I, the bottom 16% in Geometry, and in the lower 33% for Algebra II for 2018.   

Analysis: With the results of the most recent PARCC test released earlier this month and corresponding triangulated data, it is reasonable to state that white, black, and hispanic students as well as free and reduced lunch (FRL) and non-free and reduced lunch students are all significantly and adversely impacted by the mathematics education in grades 7 through 12 offered in the Hoboken Public Schools. 

Figure 1- 2017 Hudson County per Pupil Spending