Magazine: FLHS Seventh Best High School in State in Demographic Group

Fort Lee High School is the seventh best high school in the state in its demographic group—at least according to the latest issue of the Star-Ledger’s Inside New Jersey Magazine.

The magazine—published over the weekend—ran an article with their version of public high school rankings based on high school proficiency test results from the 2009-2010 school year and sorted by demographic and socioeconomic status.

“Fort Lee High School fared very well,” said Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow, though he noted that each year different media organizations seem to look at different criteria.

“For example, Newsweek Magazine last year ranked us among the top 6 percent in the nation, but that was purely based on kids taking SAT tests,” Bandlow said. “That was all they looked at so that was totally different criteria, but it was also very high. We don’t complain either way.”

Inside New Jersey Magazine based its findings on two tests—Language Arts and Math—reporting the scores in each of those subject areas for what it called “failed” (what the New Jersey Department of Education calls “not proficient”), “passed (just)” (what the state calls “proficient”) and “advanced passed,” or what the state calls “advanced proficient.” The magazine then came up with a composite score it used to rank high schools within each District Factor Group (DFG).

DFGs are how the state organizes school districts for purposes of comparison into demographic groups based on the respective community’s average income, poverty, home values and other factors, with “A” being relatively depressed and “J” being the most affluent. Fort Lee falls somewhere in the upper-middle, according to the state data, which is updated every 10 years, in the “FG” group.

Fort Lee High School was one of only nine Bergen County high schools to rank in the top 10 in their demographic groups, and only three of those ranked higher—Hasbrouck Heights, for example, came in first in the “FG” group.

“We always come out high, and the last couple of years, we’ve come out higher than we had in previous years, which is a good thing,” Bandlow said. “That shows that compared to others, we’re trending upwards.”

The superintendent couldn’t point to one factor within the school district that would account for the high ranking, but rather, he said, “In reality, it’s a lot of things.”

Among them, Bandlow noted the district’s implementation of its International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which he called “a very rigorous academic program,” and what he called a "very significant" rise of more than 59 percent in student enrollment in Advanced Placement classes since 2009 (234 students took 426 AP exams in 2011 versus 147 taking 272 in 2009).

“We did well, and I think that our leadership is going in the right direction,” Bandlow said. “We give a lot of credit for this to the administrators at the high school and to the faculty at the high school who are working to help kids raise student achievement.”

A complete list of the rankings is on page 27 of the latest issue of Inside New Jersey Magazine.