Responses to Constructive Feedback and Questions on BHCW’s Reporting on the Declines

Nov 19, 2023

During the 10/12/2023 BOE Meeting, I invited all BOE Members present and members of the Administration to a public debate on the declines. I am still waiting to hear from someone on my offer.

Over the past month BOE Members and several community members on different forums provided BHCW feedback on our articles and I want to provide these concerns with the respect of a response. This isn’t intended to embarrass or call out anyone (we arent attributing any of the objections or questions to names) but to continue an important conversation that deserves our attention. These are points made by multiple members of the community and members of the current BOE Majority.

Before we get into this, you should also understand that on the 7-District Dashboard, we’ve developed, Berkeley has ranked LAST on every list we’ve looked at: state proficiency, US News and World Report, and Niche. Please remember this as you read each of the questions we’ve heard and our response.

Why Don’t you focus on the positives – -our Middle School performance in comparison to Cranford, Scotch Plains for example?

The seven-district dashboard has schools that are geographically and socioeconomically proximate to Berkeley Heights – these were schools selected a year ago. They even include a District suggested by a BOE member (Ms. Stanley). Although we don’t think Westfield was the best choice in the interest of fairness, we included it; it didn’t help our situation look any better.

Here is where Berkeley Heights stands when it comes to Median Income and can also act as more evidence as to why we selected the Districts we did:

Millburn, NJ ~250,000

Chatham, NJ ~209.000

Westfield NJ ~185,000

Berkeley Heights: ~177,000

New Providence: ~155,00

Madison NJ ~152,00

Summit, NJ ~151,000

https://censusreporter.org/

Income levels are a very good predictor of District performance which makes our decline that much more concerning. We are right in the middle of the pack and spend more per student than any other District on the Dashboard so why are we dead last on every measure? When you consider the numbers above, location and school configurations- the list is a very fair and balanced pool of Districts to compare ourselves to.

On High School Rankings in US News & World Report and AP Results

Now, if this measure was as weighty as the BOE Majority believes it is, we wouldn’t be last on every ranking list within the dashboard, but let’s take a look at AP.

One statement I’ve read is that US News and World Report claims that 61% of ALL GLHS students take at least one AP class.

Based on the above screenshot from US News and World Report, 61% of 12th graders sat for an AP exam, and 53% passed it (not 61%/53%of all GLHS Students).

We also cannot tell what subject areas these AP exams cover- is it Math? German? Latin? Science?

So roughly (very rough estimate here), we are talking about ~125 students in one class who passed some type of AP exam.

What about the 11 other grades and ~2500 other students? The next point will help answer that question.

On the Importance of Showing “the Spread”

One of the reasons we ranked lower than the other seven schools (and dropped in our rankings) IS the differences in proficiency scores. Here is the “spread” we’ve reported on concerning our proficiency, based on NJ DOE Data:

The Cautions in the state data make the differences between both time periods meaningless

That is why we included a comparison to the other schools- so that you may compare what a reasonable degree of difference might look like from one time period to the next and how we compare to other schools on the actual pass rates.

Its important to look at all the data on the table – it isn’t meant to be just a year-to-year comparison in a vacuum. This is precisely why, I suspect, the District has avoided comparisons to other schools in their presentations and has stuck to arguments like “it’s because of Covid” or “our students don’t care about these tests.” or “look at our AP Exams”

On the Practice of Averaging out the Rankings

Averaging out a ranking of different lists that seek to rank the same thing using various measures can provide a helpful, easy-to-look-at, integrated measure one can use to understand the information. It is certainly not the end-all-all-all, but it is a valid perspective in looking at the data.

However, if you don’t think so I am okay with that; we also displayed the ranking on each list separately.

On the value of State Proficiency AND/OR US News AND/OR Niche Rankings

Every one of these ranking lists has value – especially state proficiency measures. Home buyers certainly agree – because they want to give their kids the best education possible when deciding on a home.

Again, you’re entitled to your opinion – but can you provide us with the data you are using in arriving at your conclusion that is more valid than what most people are using to decide where to send their kids to school?

Would that data convince a family whose child is struggling or a potential home buyer that “rankings don’t matter”?

Why can’t you highlight the positives?- Part II

Our schools have experienced a significant decline and are lower on these rankings than three years ago when last measured.

That’s important.

As our public school system is where our heaviest investment of tax dollars goes to and why people choose communities, the community needs to be aware of this.

The point of providing this information is so the public can make informed choices when voting, in evaluating what is said during BOE meetings, to validate parents whose children are struggling that it may not be their child but the system, and to show homeowners potential risk factors in their home values.

This is something media outlets should be doing and have done- it’s a reason why freedom of speech and freedom of the press exist.

There are already outlets that only focus on the positive- residents need an outlet that gives them an accurate picture. When those outlets (one example: our School District’s social media page) provide residents with accurate information outside of marketing photo ops, begin to allow for comments, and the District acknowledges our decline, maybe the need to report on it in this manner won’t be as substantial.

Teachers and staff are also very concerned about the District under this Superintendent and the support she has received from a BOE majority.

Many of our Articles on this topic Were Written or Sourced by Teachers.

A more important question to ask is why these declines are happening.

We attempted to inform the BOE and the superintendent of these issues for THREE years.

Then, the results started pouring in.

Here is a list of articles I wrote to help our district understand the slide:

It starts with a completely botched school reconfiguration:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/impact-of…/

Moving teachers around en masse to grades they dont have experience in:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/reassignments…/

Not tracking outcomes effectively:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/culture-data-and…/

Focusing on Lawyers and Politics:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/lawyers-and-loss-of…/

Cutting off families from decisions and giving feeedback:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/possible-factors…/

And our spending priorities were admin and lawyers while kids couldn’t even get textbooks:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/putting-it-all-together…/

After I didn’t get a response from anyone in the District other than Dr. Foregger and Ms. Khanna, I spent more time trying to help the District understand what they could do to address these issues across two articles:

https://bhcommunitywatch.com/…/what-we-can-do-to…/

This, I feel, is more helpful than pretending everything is okay and enabling a very bad trend of underperformance in our math, science, and ELA that harms our kids.

If you still think reporting on this is evil or wrong, ask yourselves “how much the district would have had to have paid to have all this work done on their behalf?”

We are doing this work because we believe in public school education, we want the best for our students and teachers and because we believe residents deserve access to different perspectives on important issues that affect them.

All The Articles on the Berkeley Heights Public School Declines in Math, Science and English Language Arts