State School Report is 'Loaded With Errors,' Superintendent Says

In response to new data reports released by the state Department of Education this week, superintendents from the Kinnelon and Butler school districts said they found discrepancies in the data.

Kinnelon Public Schools Interim Superintendent Diane DiGiuseppe said at a board of education meeting Thursday night the report for her district was "loaded with errors." She noted the change of format, the main difference being that school districts are compared to "peer" districts and schools instead of those in their District Factor Group (DFG), from previous school report cards now included in the NJ School Performance Report. In the new report (this week's released data was based on the 2011-12 school year), a "peer" district or school is defined as having students of similar demographic characteristics, such as the percentage of students who are in special education programs, limited English proficiency programs or who qualify for free or reduced lunch.

In Kinnelon's case, the high school was peered with such Morris County schools as West Morris Mendham High School and Morris County Vocational School of Law & Public Safety. Instead, DiGiuseppe said she would have thought the school would have been compared to schools like Madison High School, Chatham High School and Mountain Lakes High School.

"We just object that these are not our peers," she said.

But included in DiGiuseppe's presentation to board members Thursday were about 18 peer schools she said the administration disagreed Kinnelon should be grouped with, mainly because they have class sizes of 88 students or fewer. Each school was compared to about 30 peer schools in its report.

"This is the first time that the state has tried to collect this type of data and manipulate it for this use," DiGiuseppe said.

One specific area of concern to DiGiuseppe was that one single piece of criteria was used to calculate the elementary schools' levels of college and career readiness: attendance. Butler Public Schools Superintendent Mario Cardinale said he was also concerned by this and as he said students at the Aaron Decker School have been working with professors at Montclair State University through an innovative new program the district has implemented.

"Now if that's not career and college readiness, then I need a different and better definition," he said.

In Butler's case, Cardinale said the report did not accurately take into account students who attend two-year colleges after graduating Butler High School and as a result, the students' level of post-secondary success reflected only students attending four-year schools.

Cardinale said the district has seen test scores improve, particularly in mathematics, and that the report does not seem to be taking into account the growing success. He questioned how in the same year the high school found a place in NJ Monthly's Top 100 High Schools list, which takes into account data provided by the state, the school was ranked as "lagging" behind its peers in the NJ School Performance Report.

Cardinale also disagreed with Butler's peer groupings.

"It appeared to me as if 65 [percent] to 70 percent of the school districts listed as peer schools were in higher socioeconomic DFGs," he said.

While disputing much of the data included in the report, DiGiuseppe said some of the information is useful to the district. One area where DiGiuseppe said she feels the district and high school should continue to work to improve is the number of students who achieve a score of 3 or better on AP exams. 

DiGiuseppe said the state DOE is fielding questions on the report and looking to improve future reports. Overall, DiGiuseppe said information about how the school district compares to peer districts could be beneficial.

"We want to know, really, how are we doing against our peers?" she said.