School
awards inspire debate
Sunday, November 07, 2004 • BY JOHN MOONEY
• Star-Ledger Staff
When Princeton Charter School won the Blue Ribbon award
from the U.S. Department of Education recently, it was a
validation of everything the experimental school has tried
in its short history.
As the first New Jersey charter school to receive the
prestigious award, it also will raise the school's profile
in an education-rich community and will likely help with
fund-raising, which is needed to keep any charter school
afloat.
"Our next appeal is in a couple of weeks, so I guess
we'll find out," said Madeline Miller, a parent of two
children in the school and head of its community
relations.
This is the season for school excellence awards. And in
this age of heightened school accountability, that means
debates about what the validity of the awards.
The most controversial award is the Blue Ribbon Award,
long the gold standard in education. Once an arduous process
of on-site visits and a 71-page application that rivaled a
doctoral dissertation, the renamed No Child Left Behind-Blue
Ribbon Award is now largely measured by test scores.
Eight schools in New Jersey and more than 200 nationwide
received it this year.
The state can nominate up to nine schools, based on
population, and the bulk were picked from those who finished
with the top 10 percent of the mean scores on the state's
annual assessments in reading and math. Private and
religious schools are judged based on national standardized
tests.
Three other nominees must come from schools with large
populations of disadvantaged students, finish with mean
scores in the top 40 percent of all schools and have shown
significant test score gains among all children.
Branch Brook School in Newark and Woodrow Wilson School
in Weehawken were among those schools this year.
"It is really an excellent judge of schools," said
Robert Higgins, a program manager in the state Department of
Education office that oversees awards. "It helps us focus
attention on closing the achievement gap."
The changes, in place for two years, coincide with the
federal No Child Left Behind act, which requires
across-the-board test score gains and places sanctions on
those falling short in any category.
In fact, all schools receiving the award must have
complied with the law's rigorous requirements for at least
two years, which essentially disqualified a third of New
Jersey's approximately 2,300 schools this year.
That concerns critics who say the award puts too much
focus on test scores and fails to recognize other qualities
of top schools measured under the previous Blue Ribbon
process.
Eight of East Brunswick's 11 public schools have
received Blue Ribbons over the award's 22-year history, and
the district's assistant superintendent said she found in
her research of such schools nationwide that the award used
to be a mark of something special.
"To receive this award, you really needed to be
exemplary at everything," said Evelyn Ogden, who has written
two books on the Blue Ribbon process. "These schools were
totally different than most schools, starting with a belief
system that all students could learn and do learn."
But she and others said the new process has become too
focused on test scores, while ignoring overall school
quality and other information.
"You don't even really have to describe your program
much at all in the application," Ogden said.
Others, including the winners, disagree. They said high
or improving scores are a reflection of quality programs.
And even for those qualifying by numbers, the final nominees
are picked by county superintendents familiar with overall
excellence.
"We find that test scores largely take care of
themselves," said Charles Marsee, head of the Princeton
Charter School.
The school has won plaudits for the rigor of its
academics, from algebra II in middle school grades to daily
French classes in the lower ones. It had the highest
percentage of students scoring advanced proficiency in
science and the third highest in math on the eighth-grade
test in 2002.
"Our scores are fantastic," he said, "but it's not like
we spend a lot of time prepping for the tests."
Chatham High School also was among the winners this
year, and the districts' superintendent said he sees both
sides to the debate.
"I am certainly proud of the high school; it is an
exceptional school," said Superintendent James O'Neill. "We
have a terrific student population, an exceptional faculty,
a very supportive community, and we are fortunate that we
are able to teach kids what we believe they need to learn
... And in the meantime, they end up doing well on tests,"
he said.
But even with the award won, O'Neill was critical of the
testing craze sweeping schools. "It is a dramatic example of
a quick political way of evaluating schools that bears no
relationship with what those schools really do," O'Neill
said.
Still, he has no problem accepting the award.
"No, we're not turning it away," he chuckled. "I would
take every recognition our kids deserve, and I think it is
well-deserved."
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com, or (973) 392-1548.
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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