
We looked at Chatham and Princeton and Ridgewood – these were three top tier comparable towns.
All 3 towns had good schools and were very nice places to live and raise a family when we were looking to buy a house and start a family.
I think we made a big mistake.
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Unfortunately, Ridgewood has veered left and has gone downhill, both as a place to live and a place to get a good education.
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2017 School Rankings:
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PRINCETON:
#6 in NJ | 155 in National Rankings | #127 in STEM Schools | College Readiness Score 74.4/100.0
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CHATHAM:
#7 in NJ | 189 in National Rankings | #134 in STEM Schools | College Readiness Score 71.9/100.0
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RIDGEWOOD
#26 in NJ | #583 in National Rankings | Not Ranked in STEM Schools | College Readiness Score 53.6/100.0
but #1 in Tradition of excellence
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Look at those numbers.
Look at the gap between Chatham and Princeton vs Ridgewood.
Look at the pitiful 53.6% College Readiness score
Look at the $101 million dollar budget.
Ridgewood will soon rank #1 in the state for taxes. Every Village administrator thinks money grows on trees and continues to use it wildly without contemplating the effect on the residents. I have actually been told “What’s YOUR problem? THIS is RIDGEWOOD and we can afford ANYTHING.” In many cases we can conveniently forget about losses incurred (Health Barn, Valet program, parking meters, proposed garage etc.) as Ridgewood has plenty of money so we can afford to experiment. The worse thing about the above is that NONE of these esteemed people can open their eyes, ears and noses (some of these actions have raised a huge stink (Health Barn and others) and see the problems, listen to the tax payers, and accomplish anything but throwing good money after bad. And this DOES include everyone running for election as well as others (the School Board etc.)
The implication is that we have a greater tax burden and get less for it than Chatham and Princeton. Actually, the tax rate in Chatham is higher than Ridgewood and the tax rate in Princeton is significantly higher. It’s also common knowledge that the average performance of students is most heavily influenced by the average intellectual abilities of the parent population. Smart people tend to have smart kids. So maybe we shouldn’t blame administrators or tax rates. Maybe we have too many stupid people (at least relative to Chatham and Princeton). I know this is hard to believe given the intellectual levels usually indicated by the posts on this blog.