By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on November 03, 2016 at 1:36 PM, updated November 03, 2016 at 3:39 PM
TRENTON — In reviewing the results of last school year’s state math and English exams, New Jersey’s Department of Education can point to plenty of positive trends.
Statewide, scores improved on nearly every exam in grades 3-11. More students exceeded grade-level expectations than the year before, and fewer students fell into the lowest-scoring category, those considered to have the most ground to make up before being ready for college or a career.
But while presenting 2016 test results to the state Board of Education on Wednesday, Deputy Education Commissioner Peter Shulman emphasized low scores he called “nothing short of shocking” among economically disadvantaged and minority students.
Compared to 2015, the state’s achievement gap for those students remained roughly the same or even improved on some tests. But it grew wider on other exams, and Shulman said the results underscore the importance of testing to ensure all students are making progress, he said.
“This is a civil rights issue,” Shulman said. “This is an ethical issue. Not just an academic one.”
Ridgewood NJ, Shortly after 4 PM on Thursday, November 3, the North West Bergen Central Dispatch Center received a telephone call from a female requesting a police response to Ridgewood High School, located at 627 East Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood. The caller informed the dispatch center that she was either sexually assaulted, or was the victim of unwanted sexual contact at the high school (a language barrier hindered communication).
Two (2) Ridgewood PD uniformed Patrol Officers and a uniformed supervisor were immediately directed to the high school and all arrived on scene within 3-5 minutes of being dispatched. The officers and their supervisor were observed interviewing two (2) females and two (2) males outside of the school’s main entrance. It is not known whether the female caller was one of those being interviewed, nor is it known whether the alleged perpetrator was one of those being interviewed.
Within 15 minutes after the arrival of officers, the civilians who were being interviewed were all observed entering the same vehicle, leaving the parking lot, and driving westbound on East Ridgewood Avenue. They were followed by the Patrol Officers and their supervisor, who had arrived in 3 separate marked police vehicles. Their destination was unknown.
What we DO know:
What the caller reportedly told the 911 operator
That police were dispatched and responded immediately
That no ambulance was observed arriving at the scene or attending to a victim
That no one was observed being placed in handcuffs at the scene
What we DON’T know:
Exactly what the caller said to the 911 operator
What was said to arriving police officers by those being interviewed
Whether the victim or the alleged perpetrator(s) were among those being interviewed
Where the civilians and police officers were going after they left the RHS parking lot
Whether or not a crime of any sort was committed
Whether RHS administration was informed of the incident and what action, if any, was taken by them
As more details of this incident become available, if they are made public, The Ridgewood Blog will report them to you.
BY HANNAN ADELY AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
The majority of schools across North Jersey improved their scores in the second year of new state exams, according to state figures released Wednesday, a trend that officials expect to continue as more students take the tests and get used to them.
Of the 367 regular public schools in Passaic and Bergen counties, about 83 percent showed gains in the tests known as PARCC that were given in math and English in Grades 3 to 11.
Call for Entries and Save the Date: Annual RHS Alumni Art Show 12th Annual Alumni Art Show Exhibit Dates: December 12, 2016 – January 5, 2017 Location: RHS, Carroll Art Gallery – Room 137 Reception: January 5, 2017 at 7 p.m.
Alumni Artists: We will be collecting your current, ready-to-hang creative works the week of December 5. Please consider sharing your talent! Please forward to you alumni friends….help spread the word!
I have been so lucky to find dedicated and interested and motivated teachers for my kids from k all the way through the high school. There have been one or 2 who are absolutely apathetic or just plain bad at their jobs. 99% have gone way above and beyond for my kids.
At every turn I am disappointed with the majority of the administration, the BOE and their never ending ability to pass the buck. Nothing changes. Nothing gets done. Spend more give less. Just playing in to the business side of education. No one I can locate in the BOE or main offices of the Ridgewood schools takes ANY responsibility for Ridgewood schools or seems to give a leap about children or education.
That stumps me and THAT never had changed. Ever.
I am completely disappointed and disillusioned with many of our teachers. I agree ,it goes to the problem with tenure. It protects hacks earning good salaries when we have enthusiastic, energetic and able bodied folks working in retail or Starbucks because they can’t find teaching jobs. I wish all those teachers with the signs and smirks would move on but they won’t because despite their protests they know they have a great deal in the Ridgewood School System.
During Monday’s Board of Education (BOE) meeting, Assistant Superintendent Stacie Poelstra made a presentation about the performances of Ridgewood students in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests.
She noted that Ridgewood did very well, explaining that the district’s students “far exceeded the cross state (the eight states that still partake in PARCC testing) and New Jersey’s passing grades.”
Those supporting it on Facebook probably are surprised that there are few coming forward against it. I am not gong to argue with anyone on Facebook and I am voting NO.
I admire Martin Walker for clearly articulating his views on issues. I agree with him 100% about full day K. I just can’t be bothered arguing with neighbors about this. There is a middle school teacher posting about this all the time. How would you like to go on record against full day K and then get her for a teacher?
Ridgewood NJ, the big local question for Ridgewood voters on November 8th will be to expand to a full-day kindergarten .
Detractors of the idea feel it’s nothing more than socialized babysitting at taxpayers expense , with little or no long-term benefit for students ,particularly in a town like Ridgewood where there are so many activities for young people and what many perceive as a need for more family time .
Proponents feel the current half day Kindergarten is more like a 1/4 of a day , and it is far too short to accomplish much of anything and even the proposed full-day kindergarten is still a short day leaving plenty of time for family activities . Proponents also feel a change in the current inconvenient hours
The reality seems to be somewhere in the middle ,with a change in current inconvenient hours lessening the financial pressure on families , balanced by a healthy skepticism over the idea of children spending far too much time with one point of view and not nurturing them with a diversity of experiences .
Full-Day Kindergarten: Public Vote is Election Day, November 8
Click here for a PDF of the public presentation.
Click here for Frequently Asked Questions. Click here to view all full-day Kindergarten documents.
Ridgewood NJ, Students today grow up in a technological society. Social platforms have replaced in person or on phone conversations andthe thought of traveling is on almost everyone’s mind. So, a commonplace or what is better know as ‘An Innovation Lab’ was developed to share their stories and journeys while collaborating on projects.
The Zonopact Innovation Lab (https://www.zonopact.com/zlab/) provides education, sparks inspiration, and enables kids across the globe to follow their aspirations.
Mayur Ramgir, President & CEO Zonopact, Inc. is the creator of the Zonopact Innovation Lab (ZIL). It provides a social platform like Facebook for students to mingle with other like-minded people, work on real world projects, share ideas and see the impact, it creates an opportunity to travel worldwide and make a real impact in someone else’s life. ZIL also provides an opportunity to work on industry sponsored projects so students can earn money as well. Colleges can even partner with ZIL to extend these benefits to their students without investing too much money on setting up their own platform.
I am writing this tonight because the gravity of what happened today seems to have been lost in the shuffle of the weekend l, and impending Halloween festivities.
A massive, tree-sized, tree branch fell across part of the playing field, the entire sidewalk and half of Bogert Ave at about 11:35 or so this morning. The entire 3rd grade was playing outside- 2 of whom are my children.
I am the Travell safety chair, and while this may seem frivolous, or decorative, it is in fact, a role I take VERY seriously. Twice in the last month, thanks to my persistent pressing of the safety issues brought to me by my fellow Travell parents, Travell safety has been on the agenda for the village council. I’ve attended the Citizen Safety Advisory Committee meetings to address them. I am the only parent in attendance to address the issues. I am the only person at all to represent our school and it’s safety issues.
I take this role very seriously, evidenced by the fact that in my own free time I have walked the streets surrounding the school, and I look for safety issues within the neighborhoods. Broken sidewalks, overgrown shrubs, parking issues, speeding concerns, sight triangles issues, property maintenance issues. These are just some of the issues I have seen. I bring them some times repeatedly- to the attention of the code enforcement officer. Sometimes she sends them on to a more appropriate party. Many, many violations have been addressed in the last few weeks thanks to our combined efforts.
I have mentioned several concerning trees to her. Many that are dead and overhang designated safe walking routes, or heavily traveled walking routes to Travell.
I walked all of the streets surrounding Travell with the assistant village engineer last spring. I mentioned several of the trees including the one which fell today. I was told trees really aren’t their department. A huge part of this tree fell in the early fall across the exact same area!! A Travell parent roped off the area until it could be addressed. This was on the walk to the school in the morning. Prime drop off time for hundreds of students. Another near miss. What else is it going to take?
Do we need a child to actually be struck and hurt- or worse, by a dead tree limb ON actual school grounds in order to take a very serious look at where there needs to be some work done?
We can have forum after forum about full day kindergarten. Spending God only knows how much money, just to spend more money, and then say we don’t have any money??
We can send newsletters and we can print signs and yet we can’t find it in the budget to hire a tree expert, an actual arborist, for the day, to ensure that the school grounds and the sidewalks surrounding them are safe? Or hire a safety expert to do a study of the area and see where we need some change? Often it’s small changes, signage or enforcement, that make ALL the difference. It doesn’t always have to be large ticket answers. It just requires some attention and concern.
I’m actually incensed at how close MY daughter was to this tree falling today.
Feet. She was feet from this. I happen to pass down this street EVERY day between 11:35- 11:45 on the way home from another school pick up. Many many days my daughter and her best friend see me and come run to the fence to yell hello to me as I pass. Today, I was running a touch late. I very literally went to turn left down Bogert and instead went the other way. It is absolutely chilling to know, unequivocally, that they would have been standing IN this exact spot saying hello to me had I made a left turn and not a right.
We need to stop addressing every other issue as if it is life and death and pay closer attention to the ones that actually are.
I heard from parents over the last weeks, as we begged parents to walk their children to school for walk to school month, a myriad of safety complaints. Several times I was informed that they no longer have crossing guards to cross their elementary school children (ages 5-11 as a reference) at Van Dien and Glen because the BF one now leaves too early due to new changes with the outsourcing.
I am on record for EIGHT years at CSAC meetings requesting advice and help about the repeated parking on the Bogert/Cambridge ave curves which force dozens of students to walk in to the center of the street on a blind curve to walk to their school. Eight years and I’ve been brushed off and given every answer or response you can possibly imagine. Not one has made the situation safer. Not one suggestion stopped my daughter from being thrown from her stroller in an attempt to get out of the way of a speeding, texting driver last year with no where to go due to cars parked in the long documented, dangerous spots along the curve.
We are year after year refused even the conversation of a crossing guard at Bogert and Glen where no less than 65 school children LIVE, and dozens more use as a pass through-it’s too expensive! It’s $8k! We can’t even get simple pedestrian crossing signs at that crossing or another along Glen (Northern Parkway) because the town refuses to pay for them (they’re about $400 each!!!imagine!) so the Generous Travell HSA, at my request, will pay for them. So to actually break that down, these parents will pay some of the highest taxes in NJ, we have one of the highest per student spending budgets in NJ, and then we are going to pay EXTRA, out of pocket, for the signage that allows for our kids to have a way to cross the street safely to access their school.
What is next? What will it take before all of YOU put the safety of these students ahead of an agenda, or just the belief that “it’s not really our department”??
Today, any number of children were FEET from this massive tree branch falling, and a complete tragedy. What will you do to ensure that this doesn’t happen again? What will you do now that a documented issue has now presented itself so many times? I guess we could give them hard hats, or we could solve the actual problem.
I know we can’t solve every safety problem at every school without which a miracle occurs, but we have repeated, documented safety issues that are being ignored or shuffled off to someone else to deal with. There are hundreds of children in YOUR care and we expect that that is something you take seriously enough to ensure their safety.
I am sure you’re all familiar with the areas in question, but I implore you to come and walk these streets with me, and any other interested parent.
In fact, at this point, I can’t see why you wouldn’t.
Thank you for your sincere attention to this matter.
In September 2016, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld education savings accounts (ESAs) as constitutional in the Silver State. ESAs are distinct from other parental choice mechanisms in education, especially K–12 private-school vouchers. Other options only enable parents to choose the school for their children—something which, in the case of vouchers, opponents have argued constitutes state aid to religious institutions because some children attend religious schools. Teachers unions and other associations have used this argument in court, citing so-called Blaine amendments in state constitutions to block vouchers. Blaine amendments are state constitutional provisions that prohibit public funds from flowing to private religious institutions.
Both research and legal precedent demonstrate that the ability to direct ESA funds to multiple education services and products separates ESAs from school vouchers. This is a critical distinction for states to recognize when considering parental choice options. Blaine amendments to state constitutions, such as the provisions in the Arizona and Nevada constitutions, have an ignoble history and should be repealed. Moreover, the distinctive policy design of ESAs makes the accounts well-positioned to withstand legal challenges based on Blaine amendments.
Diversity and Customization in ESA Use Among Arizona Families
In 2011, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s first law establishing ESAs. The state deposits a portion of a child’s allotted funds from the state education formula into a restricted-use bank account that parents use to buy educational products and services for their children. Parents and students can use the accounts for online classes, private school tuition, personal tutors, saving for college, and financing a variety of other learning experiences. Every child is different, and with an account, students and their parents can design an education as unique as they are.
After lawmakers enacted ESAs, teachers unions and other special interests challenged their legality in court. Arizona unions based their suit on the state’s Blaine amendment, which prohibits public funds from flowing to religious institutions. In 2014, Arizona courts ruled in Niehaus v. Huppenthal that ESAs do not violate the state constitution.
Arizona families have used these accounts to pay for a wide variety of education-related services, products, and providers. In 2013, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (now EdChoice) conducted the first study of Arizona families’ purchases with the accounts.[1] Among those students, the study found that approximately 34 percent of account recipients used their funds for multiple learning experiences.[2]
Between 2012 and 2014, lawmakers expanded ESA eligibility to include children from active duty military families, children who had been adopted through Arizona’s foster care system, preschoolers with special needs, siblings of account holders, and students in public schools rated “D” or “F” on the state report card system. An updated analysis using ESA data from the Arizona Department of Education from the end of the 2013–2014 school year and the complete 2014–2015 school year, and including these new populations of eligible students, found relative stability in the proportion of families using their accounts to customize their children’s learning experience. Research from this time period found 28 percent of families using their ESAs to pay for multiple education services, products, and providers.
Although there was a modest decrease in the percentage of families using their ESAs for multiple services over the course of the two evaluations—from 34 percent to 28 percent—these results demonstrate that with a larger and different cohort of students over a different time period, a similar percentage of students still customized their learning experience with an account. In the analysis of families participating in the 2011–2012 school year, all participating students were children with special needs. These latest data include students made eligible through changes in the law since the first report. New eligibility criteria and the passage of time did not change how families value the accounts’ flexibility. Parents continue to access a diverse menu of products and services to meet their children’s learning needs.
Legal Challenge to ESA in Nevada
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought a lawsuit similar to that in Arizona against a recently established ESA program in Nevada. In September 2016, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the accounts as constitutional as far as the state’s own Blaine amendment provisions are concerned. The program remains suspended, however, because the court ruled that lawmakers must revise the statute’s funding provisions—statutes specific to Nevada law that do not have national implications.
The research findings from Arizona are relevant for Nevada families waiting to use ESAs. In 2015, Nevada lawmakers made history by making every child attending a public school in the state eligible for an ESA. Before any children were able to take advantage of the new option, the ACLU filed suit to block the program. In Duncan v. State of Nevada, the ACLU made claims similar to claims made by teachers unions in Niehaus v. Huppenthal. Citing the Nevada constitution’s Blaine amendment, the ACLU attempted to block the Silver State’s ESA program by arguing that it constitutes state aid to religious institutions.
Blaine Amendments’ Ignoble Roots
During the latter half of the 19th century, Catholic families sought to establish Catholic schools as an alternative to the publicly funded common schools emerging in the United States at the time. Common schools sought to assimilate all students to a general sort of Protestantism, including use of the King James Bible and conducting devotional activities.[3] Maine Senator James G. Blaine sought to prohibit aid to “sectarian” schools. As the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in Mitchell v. Helms, the effort had “a shameful pedigree that we do not hesitate to disavow…. Consideration of the amendment arose at a time of pervasive hostility to the Catholic Church and to Catholics in general, and it was an open secret that sectarian was code for Catholic.”[4]
Although the federal amendment failed, Congress subsequently required territories seeking admittance to the union to include similar prohibitions on public funds supporting religiously affiliated schools. That requirement, in conjunction with the 14 states that already had Blaine-type language prior to the federal effort, resulted in 29 states having such restrictions by 1890, and 38 states had adopted Blaine amendments by 1959.[5]
ESA Design: Helping to Withstand Blaine-Based Lawsuits
Nevada’s Blaine amendment says that “no public funds of any kind or character whatever, State, county or Municipal, shall be used for sectarian purpose.”[6] Thankfully for Nevada families, in September 2016, the state supreme court upheld ESAs as constitutional. The court held that ESAs provide money to families, who can use funds to pay for a variety of education-related products and services such as private tutors, private school tuition, and other expenses.[7] Families will be able to access ESAs pending identification of an appropriate funding source for the accounts.[8]
The defining feature of ESAs—that parents can make multiple choices for their children’s education—helped them survive a Blaine-based legal challenge in Arizona where the state supreme court had deemed a voucher program unconstitutional. In the 2013 Arizona Court of Appeals’ unanimous opinion, Judge Jon Thompson wrote that “[t]he ESA does not result in an appropriation of public money to encourage the preference of one religion over another, or religion per se over no religion. Any aid to religious schools would be a result of the genuine and independent private choices of the parents.”[9] In 2014, the Arizona Supreme Court denied the union’s appeal of the lower court’s decision, allowing the court of appeals decision to stand.
Critically, ESA funds are not reserved for specific schools or education providers. Funds are deposited into parent-controlled accounts, and parents can use the funds for an education-related provider, product, or service of choice. The ESA option “does not require any student to be enrolled in a private school, much less a ‘sectarian’ private school.”[10] The ability to direct dollars to multiple education services is a critical distinction between ESAs and other parental choices in education, including K–12 private school vouchers.
Customization Makes ESAs Unique Education Choice Mechanisms
The distinctive policy design of ESAs enables accountholders to finance multiple learning options beyond tuition at a private school. It also makes the accounts well-positioned to withstand Blaine amendment–based legal challenges. Such lawsuits against private school vouchers have alleged that these scholarships constitute state aid to religious institutions. Yet nearly 30 percent of Arizona ESA families are making multiple education decisions simultaneously in determining how and where their children learn. In this way, Arizona parents’ customization demonstrates what the courts have reasoned: ESAs are functionally different from other parental choices in education. Nevada courts reached the same conclusion.
—Lindsey M. Burke is Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy Studies in the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation. Jonathan Butcher is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute.
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Crew team competed in their first regatta on October 8, the Tail of the Passaic. The team garnered two first-place finishes, including the Men’s Varsity 1x; and the Women’s Varsity 4x Ridgewood Crew also took home five-second place finishes.
In addition to the four semifinalists, 25 students have been identified as Commended Students in the most recent competition.
Ridgewood NJ, The Nation’s Report Card: 2015 Science shows scores have improved overall, and higher percentages of the nation’s fourth- and eighth-grade students demonstrated mastery of science on the 2015 assessment compared with the 2009 assessment. The results also show score gaps narrowing by race/ethnicity. The average score of 12th-grade students did not change between 2009 and 2015.
In 2015, 22 percent of 12th-graders performed at or above the Proficient achievement level, which denotes competency over challenging subject matter. Additionally, 38 percent of fourth-graders and 34 percent of eighth-graders performed at or aboveProficient — an increase of 4 percentage points at both grades compared with 2009.
“Seeing these gains in science from our fourth- and eighth-graders makes me hopeful about the future of our nation’s students,” said former Wyoming Gov. James Geringer, director of policy and public sector strategies at the Environmental Systems Research Institute and member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP. “But that progress needs to continue since only about one-third of students, or even fewer, have the science skills they need.”
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — known as The Nation’s Report Card — is the largest nationally representative, continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subjects. The 2015 science assessment measured students’ knowledge of physical science, life science, and Earth and space sciences. The assessment also measured how well students implement science practices, like using scientific principles and engaging in scientific inquiry.
National science results are available for students at grades four, eight, and 12; state-level results are available at grades four and eight.
National highlights include:
Performance Improves at Grades Four and Eight
At grades four and eight, students scored higher in 2015 than in 2009 in all three science content areas: physical science, life science, and Earth and space sciences.
From 2009 to 2015, the percentage of students performing below the Basic achievement level decreased by 4 percentage points at grades four and eight.
Score Gaps Narrow by Race and Gender at Grades Four and Eight
The score gaps between black and white students and between Hispanic and white students at both grades four and eight have narrowed since 2009.
In 2015, fourth-grade male students scored about the same as fourth-grade female students, eliminating the gender difference.
At grade eight, male students scored higher than female students, but the difference between their scores in 2015 was smaller than the difference between their scores in 2011 (3 points versus 5 points).
At grade 12, male students outperformed female students by 5 points. The gap between their scores in 2015 was not statistically different from the 2009 gap.
State highlights include:
Some Sizable Gains Made at Grades Four and Eight
Between 2009 and 2015, scores at both grades rose in 15 states and jurisdictions: Arizona, Arkansas, Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina,Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. Of these, DoDEA schools, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming had a percentage of students performing at or above Proficient that was greater than the average percentage for national public schools in 2015.
From 2009 to 2015, four states and jurisdictions showed score gains at grade four that were larger than the national average score gain: Arizona, DoDEA schools, Georgia and Tennessee. At grade eight, three states had this distinction: Nevada, Tennesseeand Utah.
Score Gaps Narrow and Close by Race and Gender
The following states saw a statistically significant narrowing of average score gaps between black and white students from 2009 to 2015: Arkansas (a decline of 10 points), Oklahoma (8.9) and Tennessee (8.6) at grade four; and Illinois (7.8) at grade eight.
The following states saw a statistically significant narrowing of the average score gap between Hispanic and white students from 2009 to 2015: Massachusetts (a decline of 8.7 points), Connecticut (8.2), Illinois (6.7) and Nevada (5.9) at grade four; and New York (8.9), Illinois (7.4), Connecticut (7.1), Wyoming (6.9) and Arizona (5.6) at grade eight.
For fourth grade, several states closed the average score gap by gender — meaning statistically significant score differences between female and male students were found in 2009 but not in 2015 — specifically, Hawaii (a decline of 4.2 points), Maine(3.5), North Carolina (2.4), South Dakota (2.4) and Ohio (1.8).
The gender score gap closed at grade 8 in Wyoming (a decline of 6.5 points), Rhode Island (6.4), New Mexico (4.8), Georgia (4.6), and Montana (4.0), and in 13 other states.
Tennessee stands out as a state that showed large score gains at grades four and eight and narrowed score gaps between black and white fourth-graders from 2009 to 2015, and its students are outperforming the nation (public schools) at grades four and eight.
“We’ve set high expectations across the board for our students in Tennessee, and our NAEP performance continues to reflect the hard work and progress our students and teachers are making,” said Candice McQueen, Tennessee commissioner of education. “To me, the most encouraging part of today’s science results is that all of Tennessee’s students are showing what is possible. We’ve narrowed or eliminated gaps between groups of students, and we are continuing to make huge strides in where we have been historically to build a new future for our children.”
Emphasizing science in and outside of the classroom is tied to student performance in the subject, as shown in data collected through NAEP student and teacher questionnaires about educational experiences. Overall, students with more exposure to science scored better on the 2015 science assessment than students with less exposure:
Eighth-graders who participate in hands-on activities or investigations in science class every day or almost every day, as reported by their teachers, scored 12 points higher than students who never or hardly ever engage in these activities.
Eighth-grade students who self-reported that they have visited a museum, zoo or aquarium to learn about science outside of a school trip scored 7 points higher than students who have not participated in those activities outside of school.
Students who have teachers with access to school-provided scientific tools for teaching science — such as telescopes, microscopes and thermometers — also scored higher. Eighth-graders whose teachers reported the highest level of access to these tools scored 16 points higher than eighth-graders whose teachers reported no access. Twelfth-graders who reported having access to such tools scored 37 points higher than 12th-graders without access.
“Students who have more opportunities to dig in deep and fully engage do better in science,” said Missouri science teacher Susan German, a panelist at the Oct. 27 event announcing the NAEP results. “They should be spending less time buried in a textbook and more time doing hands-on activities, such as investigating which insulator works best in keeping soda cold or how height and mass influence the size of impact craters. Parents should do as much as they can to expose their children to science outside of the classroom too — even if it’s as simple as taking them on a walk through a park.”
About the Assessment
The 2015 science assessment was conducted in grades four, eight and 12 and reported at the national level for each. State-level results for grades four and eight are available for 46 states and U.S. Department of Defense schools that voluntarily participated in the assessment. (Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Louisiana and Pennsylvania did not have the necessary sample size in 2015 for state-level results to be reported.) For grades four and eight, national results reflect the scores of both public and private school students, while state-level results reflect the scores of public school students only.
NAEP performance results are presented as average scale scores and as achievement levels, reported as the percentages of students performing at or above Basic, Proficient and Advanced. Basic denotes partial mastery of the subject, Proficient denotes competency over challenging subject matter and Advanced represents superior work. Scale scores range from 0 to 300. Because NAEP scores and achievement levels are developed independently for each subject, results cannot be compared across subjects. Performance results also cannot be compared with data from before 2009, when the new science framework was introduced. The last assessment for fourth- and 12th-graders took place in 2009, and the last assessment for eighth-graders was administered in 2011.
Check out this video illustrating NAEP data to see how science education can translate into a related career path.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the largest nationally representative, continuing evaluation of the condition of education in the United States. It has served as a national yardstick of student achievement since 1969. Through The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP informs the public about what American students know and can do in various subject areas and compares achievement among states, large urban districts and various student demographic groups. The National Assessment Governing Board oversees and sets policy for NAEP. Follow NAEP on Facebook and Twitter.
NAEP is a congressionally authorized project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Center for Education Statistics, within the Institute of Education Sciences, administers NAEP. The commissioner of education statistics is responsible by law for carrying out the NAEP project.
The National Assessment Governing Board is an independent, nonpartisan board whose members include governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives and members of the general public. Congress created the 26-member Governing Board in 1988 to oversee and set policy for NAEP. Follow the Governing Board on Facebook and Twitter.
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 25, 2016 at 1:06 PM, updated October 25, 2016 at 1:28 PM
PRINCETON — A new ranking of the world’s best universities places both Princeton and Rutgers universities in the top 100.
Princeton cracked the top 10 in U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 Best Global Universities rankings, earning the eighth spot on the list. Rutgers tied with the University of Florida for 82nd.
While Princeton improved in the rankings from 13th last year, Rutgers dropped from 60th.
The rankings cover the top 1,000 institutions from 65 different countries and are heavily based on the universities’ reputation for academic research both regionally and globally. Also among the dozen factors considered are the number of publications and citations produced the university.
“United States universities do especially well in the Best Global Universities rankings because they place an enormous emphasis on academic research,” said Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News
American universities claimed the top five spots on the list, with Harvard University claiming the title as the best university in the world.
