East Orange School District
Failing in 2016
01/06/16
The mayor of East Orange will be
giving a "State of the City" speech on January 19th,
2016. He will be expecting to give the citizens of East Orange
the usual "snow job" spins to make himself and his
mis-administration look good. Those attending this speech should
be prepared to ask him questions he doesn't want asked: Why,
after three years of your being in office, are the schools
continuing to fail to teach our students reading, writing and
mathematics?
The towns all around East Orange
have begun to reverse the downward trends in their schools. Here
are the statistics from the Niche School Rankings for 2016 - https://k12.niche.com/ and how we compare to our neighbors.
#43 Montclair Public Schools is
centered in Montclair Township, New Jersey. It has 6,678 students
attending 11 schools in grades PK and K-12. According to state
standards, 80% of students in this
district are considered proficient in math and/or reading. The
district has an annual budget of $119,938,000, spending an
average of $18,104 per student.
There have been 272 reviews written and they have been mostly positive.
#51 South Orange-Maplewood School
District is centered in Maplewood Township, New Jersey. It
has 6,759 students attending 9 schools in grades PK and K-12.
According to state standards, 83% of
students in this district are considered proficient in math
and/or reading. The district has an annual budget of
$124,848,000, spending an average of $19,163
per student. There have been 284 reviews written and they have
been mostly positive.
#82 West Orange Public Schools
is centered in West Orange Township, New Jersey. It has 6,869
students attending 11 schools in grades PK and K-12. According to
state standards, 76% of students in
this district are considered proficient in math and/or reading.
The district has an annual budget of $141,427,000, spending an
average of $20,823 per student.
There have been 252 reviews written and they have been mostly positive.
#86 Bloomfield Board of Education
is centered in Bloomfield Township, New Jersey. It has 6,173
students attending 11 schools in grades PK and K-12. According to
state standards, 72% of students in
this district are considered proficient in math and/or reading.
The district has an annual budget of $96,134,000, spending an
average of $15,866 per student.
There have been 190 reviews written and they have been mostly positive.
#226 East Orange School District
is centered in East Orange, New Jersey. It has 9,465 students
attending 20 schools in grades PK and K-12. According to state
standards, 48% of students in this
district are considered proficient in math and/or reading. The
district has an annual budget of $244,570,000, spending an
average of $25,190 per student.
There have been 327 reviews written and they have been mixed.
We spend more per student than any of our neighbors. Each
year we spend more and more per student, and each year our
students remain at the same level of proficiency in math and
reading, or lower.
Let's look at the rankings for each of our two East Orange
high schools that are listed:
#307 Cicely L. Tyson Community School
of Performing & Fine Arts - Secondary School is a
public school in East Orange, New Jersey. It has 775 students in
grades 6-12. According to state standards, 60%
of students at this school are considered proficient in math
and/or reading. There have been 153 reviews written and they have
been mixed.
#371 East Orange Campus High School is
a public school in East Orange, New Jersey. It has 1,653 students
in grades 9-12. According to state standards, 43% of students at this school are
considered proficient in math and/or reading. There have been 125
reviews written and they have been mixed.
Most of the money spent by East Orange
School District is NOT being used to teach our students, but is
simply paying large numbers of administrators, who have little or
no contact with the students, huge salaries that are increased
each year whether they have earned the increases or not. The
members of the Board of Education are all appointed by the mayor
based on their "connections" and "cronies",
not based on any knowledge they have of education.
The entire Board of Education
system needs to be dismantled and replaced by a Board of Principals from each of the East Orange Schools.
Get rid of the useless layers of vice-principals and other
administrators who are not classroom teachers. Any student who is
not 80% or more proficient in reading, writing and math at his or
her grade level should ONLY receive instruction in reading,
writing and math to the EXCLUSION of ALL other subjects and
activities. Once proficiency is up to 80% or above, then and ONLY
THEN can they receive instruction in other subjects and engage in
other school activities.
The only way this can be
achieved is for you, the taxpayers and voters, to demand change
and accountability from those in elected offices. Otherwise, you
are getting what you deserve... nothing but continued failure.