New
list spells out N.J. schools shy of federal
benchmarks
Morristown misses limited-English
goals
Friday, August 19, 2005 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
By federal decree, another list of New
Jersey's "underperforming" schools is out, adding to the
summer sweep of the No Child Left Behind Act that has left
few schools unscathed.
Yesterday, the state released a list of
40 school districts and charter schools where
limited-English students fell short of mandated achievement
levels in 2003-04. The schools ranged from large cities,
like Newark and Jersey City, to wealthier suburbs, like
Summit.
Morristown High School was one of five
schools in the state whose limited-English-proficiency
students did not make adequate yearly progress and also did
not meet state objectives in 2003-04.
School board president Angela Rieck
complained that the numbers "highlight the negative" and
don't show the complexity of the problem.
"What makes it difficult is that they are
usually not proficient in their own language, so it's almost
like we have to teach them two languages," she
said.
Morristown High had three of its 24
limited-English students demonstrate proficiency this year,
an improvement on results from 2002-03, when none of its 28
students passed. The state average last year for proficiency
was about 24 percent.
"We've got a bilingual program to improve
proficiency, and we did," Rieck said. "But as soon as
students become proficient, they're put with the regular
kids, so we don't get points for them."
The Phillipsburg School District did not
meet its annual measurable achievement objectives for
English fluency, either.
But Phillipsburg Board of Education
president Rod Pianelli said the district has made strides
since adding an extra hour each day of "student contact
time" -- time spent with a teacher in front of the
classroom.
He said that with the implementation of
No Child Left Behind, the federal government gave states the
responsibility of setting their own bars.
"By setting that bar, they have included
all of the student population," Pianelli said. "It is
virtually impossible to have, in certain aspects, all of the
student population achieve what the directive
is."
Several educators expressed frustration
over what was the summer's fourth report coming out of the
controversial federal education law, but few complained
about the law's focus on the struggles of teaching immigrant
children -- especially Hispanic students, who as a category
are among the state's lowest test performers.
"This focuses the spotlight on a group of
students that in the past fell off the radar screen," said
Raquel Sinai, the state's coordinator of bilingual
education.
Recent reports tagged more than half of
the state's 2,300 public schools as falling short in one
area or another, including the qualifications of teachers
and achievement of students in 40 different
categories.
The latest designations are the first for
specifically limited-English students, part of Title III in
the new law that provides about $20 million a year to New
Jersey for bilingual and immigrant education. That amounts
to about $300 for each of the estimated 60,000 students in
the programs.
With the funding comes new requirements
that these students meet certain achievement levels, much
like those in the law's overall requirements for New Jersey
schools that saw more than 600 falling short in one category
or another.
For instance, as many as three- quarters
of limited-English students in a high school were required
to pass the 11th-grade language arts test in 2003-04, no
easy feat considering that just a quarter passed
statewide.
Twenty-nine districts with at least 20
limited-English students fell short in 2003-04, making the
latest list.
In addition, the law requires schools to
show steady progress in teaching these students English,
using complicated formulas that measure language fluency and
the years it takes a student to exit limited-English
programs.
Sixteen districts failed to reach that
mark and were listed in the latest report. Another 16 also
failed but were not publicly identified due to their low
enrollment of limited- English students.
Staff writers John Wihbey and Mike Frassinelli
contributed to this report. John Mooney covers education. He
may be reached at jmoo ney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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