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Chart 1: 2019 Grade Level Scores (Grade 3 to 8)
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A recent post has generated a great deal of interest and conversation. Specifically, the post reported on data emanating from Stanford University's Educational Opportunity Project that indicated the Hoboken Public School District students completing Grades 3 to 8 are 1.27 grade levels below other students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Moreover, when compared to all other Hudson County Public School District students from similar socio-economic backgrounds (see Chart 1) the Hoboken Public Schools are abysmal. To be clear, Hoboken scored BY FAR the lowest among all public school districts in Hudson County. Statistically significantly lower-- these numbers are no accident. And this is the second year in a row the district has scored so low.
DISTRICT
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GRADE LEVELS
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BAYONNE
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0.67
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Higher
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GUTTENBERG
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0.06
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Higher
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HARRISON/E. NEWARK
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-0.09
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Lower
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HOBOKEN
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-1.27
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Lower
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JERSEY CITY
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-0.24
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Lower
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KEARNY
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0.21
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Higher
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NORTH BERGEN
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0.54
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Higher
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SECAUCUS
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-0.03
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Lower
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UNION CITY
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1.24
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Higher
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WEEHAWKEN
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0.6
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Higher
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WEST NEW YORK
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0.87
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Higher
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Of course, in an attempt to explain these results, some people in Hoboken who identify themselves as "supporters of the public schools" have made claims about the difference in the socioeconomic background between public school students and the rest of the City of Hoboken. This argument holds no real substance. The percentage of students on free or reduced lunch in the Hoboken Public Schools is below 50% and in the elementary grades tested (Grades 3 to 8). Going further into the numbers, when considering the PreK to 8 population (since most 8th grade graduates have been educated in the Hoboken Public Schools since pre-school) the precent of free or reduced lunch is below 50% (see Chart 2).
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Chart 2: 2018-19 Hoboken Data- Enrollment and SES status
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Nevertheless, because of the SES issue, I asked a researcher at Stanford to comment about how the SES number is derived. What follows is their response along with some additional reference materials. The issues in the Hoboken Public Schools are beginning to gather national attention. People want to know how can these test scores occur when you have 9:1 student teacher ratios, teachers being compensated at salaries far above state and national averages, per pupil spending close to $28,000 per student and so much chatter on social media about how wonderful the schools are doing. People are beginning to notice....
Question (Dr. Petrosino): Can you explain in a little detail how the socioeconomic status of the school district was calculated?
Answer (Stanford Researcher): I looked into how the SES measure was created. The creation of the SES measure is quite complicated, but SES status is essentially a composite created from 6 measures from the ACS survey: median income, proportion of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher, child poverty rate, SNAP receipt rate, single mother headed household rate, and unemployment rate for each race group (all, white, black, Hispanic) in each of 7-year spans for both the estimates and their standard errors. I put a link to the documentation along with some things that might be useful or helpful, depending on how in-depth of an answer you need.
The link to the documentation:
I've highlighted some things that might be useful:
1) The exact wording of the all the survey questions for each of the 6 measures are in appendix B of the documentation starting on page 69.
2) On page 63: is a nice table that shows how each of the 6 measures of the SES composite looks at different standard deviations of the SES composite.
3) On page 40: the construction of the SES measures is described in detailed. (This is very technical (imputation, weighting, standard error shrinkage) to create the SES composite.
Additional resources on Hudson County School Districts:
