WALLACE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Drops - Now Among the Lowest Performing Public Schools in Hoboken, Hudson County, and New Jersey on NJDOE Educational Quality Metrics- "requiring targeted support"

Wallace School Drops in NJDOE Scores and Percentiles for 2017-18

Elementary school is critical to student success in middle school and high school. Research shows conclusively that 3rd grade reading scores correlate with later school success. It is the period where the basic foundation of reading and mathematics are first established. That being said, recent independent, third party evaluations of the Wallace Elementary School shows there is cause for concern for the educational future of the students attending this school.

Wallace Elementary School in Hoboken, NJ scores are once again among the lowest scores in the State of New Jersey (last year the NJDOE ranked the school in the 37th percentile-- this year the NJDOE ranked the school below the 27th percentile). 73% of New Jersey Public Schools do better than Wallace Elementary School on the NJDOE 0-100 scale score. 

 The New Jersey Department of Education scores are graded on a scale of 0-100 and consider standardized test results, graduation rates and other factors. For elementary and middle schools like Wallace School, the following criteria are used for score calculation:

NJDOE Elementary and middle schools scoring criteria:English language arts growth (20 percent), math growth (20 percent), progress toward English language proficiency (20 percent), English language arts proficiency (15 percent), math proficiency (15 percent), chronic absenteeism (10 percent). A 50th percentile rating is considered average.

The NJDOE has ranked Wallace Elementary in the 27th percentile-- 10 percentile points below last year's incredibly low 37th percentile score. This with an 8:1 teacher ratio, 64% of students that are NOT economically disadvantaged, an average of 9.5 years of experience for a teacher, and around $30,000 per pupil spending. 

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2016-17 Cost per Pupil- Hoboken City District

The NJDOE reports that there are approximately 687 students in Wallace Elementary School, 64% of which are NOT economically disadvantaged. Wallace is a majority non-poverty school. PK-06 grades are housed in the school. 

The Wallace Elementary School student to teacher ratio is 8:1 according to the NJDOE - while the average class size for a New Jersey elementary school is around 19 to 1 according to the US Department of Education. 

2018-19 Great Schools Rating- Wallace Elementary

Moreover, according to the NJDOE the average Wallace teacher has 9.5 years of experience and the district's per pupil spending is around $30,000 per pupil. To be clear, these are not novice instructors teaching economically disadvantaged students in an underfunded school. Rather, these are experienced, well paid tenured teachers teaching in high resourced classrooms with low student-teacher ratios in a school that is majority non-poverty.

One would think that the instructional and administrative staff would have better results in reading and mathematics. These results are inconsistent with what we expect from well funded, medium/high socioeconomic status (SES) schools.  

Unfortunately, the Wallace results as well as similar results from the Hoboken Middle School should come as no surprise. It was about 1 year ago when I posted that an analysis by researchers at Stanford University showed Hoboken has the lowest growth rate in Hudson County and among the lowest growth rates in NJ and the entire nation (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1- Effective School Districts (Stanford University)

The result is that the New Jersey Department of Education has currently classified Wallace Elementary School as "requiring targeted support."

Find out more about Wallace Middle School by clicking HERE.  

Contact the Wallace PTO at: wallaceschoolpto@gmail.com

2018 Performance Report- Wallace School

Commentary: Perhaps Board Members, administrators and instructional staff involved with Wallace Elementary School in Hoboken should consider concentrating their efforts more on student achievement in reading and mathematics rather than obsessively posting on social media with students as props about participation "accomplishments."

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