Newark reveals post-COVID standardized test scores while many others wait

When standardized testing resumed in the Spring of 2022 after being suspended for two years under COVID-19, Newark was like the rest of New Jersey, which experienced declines in math and English scores attributed to pandemic-related restrictions, stresses and other disruptions.

But state education officials have delayed publishing results for all the states schools well beyond their traditional Fall release, leaving many families and educators eager to learn how their school or one they may be considering for their student scored last Spring after two years of pandemic learning losses.

So, some educators applauded Newark, the states largest school district, after it published test scores for individual schools and other data it posts online to help families decide where to place their students.

I think its really important that we have transparency, said Harry Lee, president and CEO of the New Jersey Charter School Association, who welcomed publication of individual school scores.

The tests, known collectively as the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment, or NJSLA, include separate math, literacy and science exams. Students usually take the tests each year, starting in third grade, though they were suspended in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Spokespeople for the Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.

The state Department of Education sent each district its overall and school-by-school results more than two months ago and required local boards of education to make their district-wide averages public. Newark, for example, announced its district-wide scores at its Sept. 27 meeting.

The scores showed that the percentage of students proficient in math had declined by half during the pandemic: District-wide, 12.7% of Newark students were proficient in math in 2022, compared to 27.2% in 2019, according to Superintendent Roger Len. In literacy, the district fell to 26.2% proficient last Spring from 35.7% in 2019. Newark did not publish science scores.

But districts dont have to publicize scores for each school, and educators say Newark has been one of the few in New Jersey to publish them. Overall, each districts reporting has varied.

Some districts, including Wayne, Princeton, Cranford, and the South Hunterdon Regional School District, have published scores for individual schools. Others, including Paterson, have published scores for different grade levels.

Officials in Livingston, Tabernacle, Hammonton, Cinnaminson, and West Essex discussed their grade-level results during meetings in October. Morris School District officials discussed performance at individual schools, according to The Morris News Bee.

A spokesman for Paterson Public Schools said the district has always published scores for grade levels rather than individual schools.

It has always been the districts practice to share each schools assessment data internally with each schools administrators and report districtwide by grade on how students performed on state assessments, the spokesman, Paul Brubaker, said in a statement.

Len said it was no secret that learning among Newark students, like those throughout the state, nation, and beyond, had suffered during the pandemic. He said providing data specific to each school made the results clearer and more useful.

Our strategy is getting as much information out there as possible, letting people know that we realize that the impact of this pandemic has been very real, Len said.

Janet Bamford, a spokesperson for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said the organization was unaware of other districts that had posted scores for individual schools. But Bamford added that districts dont notify us about releasing their assessment data.

As New Jerseys largest district, with 69 schools, some of them academies with a competitive application process, results varied broadly on the standardized tests.

For example, the percentage of students who tested proficient in math in Newark was as low as 2.3% at Avon Avenue Elementary School, a decline from 15.1% in 2019. Avon students did better on the literacy test, with a 17.3% proficiency rate in 2022, down from 26.6% in 2019.

By contrast, 18.5% of students at Newarks Mount Vernon Elementary School were proficient in Math last Spring, down from 40.6% in 2019. Mount Vernon had a 35.6% proficiency rate in literacy, down from 48.4% in 2019.

Len said Newarks numbers were consistent with district and state-wide patterns in which scores were lower overall and fell more dramatically for math in 2022 than literacy. He said the steeper decline in math was because the test reflected the heavy use of language or text common in contemporary math education, which made math subject to learning losses for both words and numbers.

The hit was double in math, Len said.

Newark published its 2022 individual school scores and other data, including student-teacher ratios and average attendance rates on the districts NewarkEnrolls online enrollment guide.

The NewarkEnrolls site also includes each schools NJSLA scores from 2018, providing a glimpse of the direction each schools scores were headed before the pandemic struck in March 2020.

The city has an additional 20,000 students enrolled in 16 charter school networks, totaling about 50 buildings or campuses, where students take the same standardized tests as their traditional public school counterparts.

A separate enrollment portal shared by half of Newark charter schools, the Newark Common App, went live on Thursday. A spokesman for the portal said Wednesday that it would include each participating charter schools scores once they were released publicly by the state.

Outside Avon Avenue School one day last week, Elaine Burgos and her 12-year-old son, Jayden, a seventh grader there, were waiting to cross the busy thoroughfare on their way home. Burgos said the schools low scores were among the concerns prompting her to look for a different school for Jayden.

Theyre pretty low, said Burgos, 37, a home health aide. Im on the way to transferring my son because of that.

As it happens, Avon Avenue School has a new principal this year, Krishna Delal Barroso, the schools former assistant principal, who was recognized by the Department of Education as an exemplary educator in 2022, according to the district.

Len said he was confident that Barroso, a 16-year veteran of the district, would help reverse the learning losses its students had suffered during the pandemic, though he said she had not been installed as principal as a result of last years test scores. Rather, he said, she was taking over from a predecessor who went on leave this year.

But Len said the district was taking deliberate steps to address learning losses, including expanded access to tutoring. Its going to take a certain amount of time to get us to the point where were pre-pandemic numbers, he said.

John Abeigon, the president of the Newark Teachers Union, was skeptical of the districts motives for publishing scores for individual schools. Rather than transparency, Abeigon suggested that Len was trying to shift attention on 2022?s declining scores from him and his central administration to the school principals.

I dont know about the willingness of any administrator in this district to talk on the record, but they are routinely humiliated, as are teachers, Abeigon said.

Christine Taylor, the president of the City Association of Supervisors and Administrators, or CASA, Newarks organization for principals, did not respond to requests for comment on Abeigons assertion, which Len rejected.

Were a little bit better than that, Len said.

NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Tina Kelley contributed to this article.

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com