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Yeah I was a little skeptical of the numbers I found, but just put them up so not to lose them.
I was going to use fact finder today but you beat me to it.
Will look for 1990 data eventually as I would think 1990-2010 would be more telling. Though the 1% increase in both BA and Grad/Pro for total population is worth noting as it represents a couple hundred degrees among the smaller adult population. If we want context though, I would compare the numbers to Camden County's rather than all of NJ since we are talking about demographic changes as they are perceived locally, i.e. direct neighboring communities.
People will scream bloody murder, but I think that whole part of the county would benefit greatly from having a larger regional high school that is Cherry Hill East/Eastern sized. One or two of the smaller schools like Haddonfield or Collingswood could stay open as magnet schools or schools for kids throughout that region who's parents believe they would thrive in a smaller environment (and get lost in a bigger one).
See, I think part of the issue I have with what you are saying is the tone that Collingswood sucked 10-15 years ago until all of the urban pioneer types decided the town was hip enough to call home and brought all of their degrees and transit oriented lifestyle to town. The fact of the matter is that Collingswood socio-economically is pretty much the same town today that it was in the 1990's. There is no "sudden influx" of educated people raising the standards.
Sorry if I offended anyone. Obviously you have more experience in the area than I do, having grown up there. So ill default to your input on the area in the past.
However, there cant be any refuting that Collingswood has a better reputation than it did 10-15 years ago. Its practically mentioned in every new article written about the area, and weather they are based on tangible factors or not, perception becomes reality. I also have tons of aniqdotle evidence from long time New Jerseyans from all over the state who wanted nothing to do with Collingswood, and now love it
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
There are no statistics that measure the performance of kids from Woodlynne vs. Collingswood vs. Oaklyn in the actual high school, they are all just lumped together.
I think you misinterpreted what I was trying to say there, or I did a poor job explaining that point... I was trying to relay the verifiable fact that students from any crummy school (Camden for example) who's family try to relocate them to better schools (via charter schools, anchor kids, or moving) always out perform their peers from that crummy school on average, weather they successfully leave the crummy school or not. This is because the students have family that value their education, which is a very large factor in determining educational success. They just dont have the good schools system.
I wasnt trying to compare the Woodlynne students to students from other districts.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Reading between the lines...our test scores suck and no they aren't getting better year-over-year and it's not fair to compare us that way because, we are doing the best we can with the kids we have, which are coming from all over with a large array of socio-economic backgrounds.
Sounds to me like the curriculum director is saying the more defensive PC version of what I'm saying.
I think you might be misinterpreting Mr Anderson here. At least I hope you are.... It sounds like you paraphrase that as 'the school is struggling because it has a group of kids from less successful socio-economic backgrounds, and those kids perform poorly, and lower the school performance as a whole'.... I interpret Mr Anderson's quotes to mean the same thing that you pointed out with your other table,
Meaning they are getting unprepared students form a sub-par primary school system (i.e. "background") and therefore the HS has to try getting them up to speed with the rest of the prepared students every time they get a new freshman class. Therefore its very difficult to improve the HS as a whole while playing catch-up for a large chunk of the students.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Google the term "Abbott District" and then come back and tell me whether or not "more resources" have an impact on school performance.
I think this is where we unfortunately will not find any common ground (and talk about 'tone')...
My wife's credentials and experience (TCNJ honors BA in Ed, PhD in Sociology, several years evaluating Abbott schools for the NJ department of Ed) means Ill value her opinion and research more than anyone in the state. And anyone with more Ed-cred would likely have similar view points as us and the supreme court. The Abbott program has definitively improved school preparedness in those districts (Woodlynne is not one of them). And the full effectiveness of the program wont be measured until children born durning the program graduate HS, as many of the important resources target families and communities, not just the school itself. Nobody is saying just throw money at the problem, that has been shown to not work. However the Abbott program does.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Listen, I want Collingswood to succeed and do well, it is my "home town" I'm just not as high on the prospect outside of them finding a way to cut Woodlynne loose.
I appreciate that, and I had actually hoped that you might side with me when I made that first post. Cutting Woodlynne out of the school system would improve the HS immediately, and is probably the easiest thing to do to improve it. And I follow the reasoning that [ better HS = more new residences = more businesses/rateables/people/taxes etc etc etc. ]
I just hoped you (and everyone) would consider an alternative solution. Cutting Woodlynne out would essentially takes away the the best thing that town has going for it, and essentially turn it into a part of Camden. I would rather have the prospect of a decent education and life in Collingswood spread toward Camden, than have the street life and no prospects of Camden spread toward Collingswood.
Yeah I was a little skeptical of the numbers I found, but just put them up so not to lose them.
I was going to use fact finder today but you beat me to it.
Will look for 1990 data eventually as I would think 1990-2010 would be more telling. Though the 1% increase in both BA and Grad/Pro for total population is worth noting as it represents a couple hundred degrees among the smaller adult population. If we want context though, I would compare the numbers to Camden County's rather than all of NJ since we are talking about demographic changes as they are perceived locally, i.e. direct neighboring communities.
DFG for 1990 = DE, for 2000 = FG, and you said 2010 = DE
Was there a noticeable improvement in 2000 that went away?
I would agree that the Camden County numbers are probably a better comparison. The general theme I was getting at though was to provide a basis for overall general improvement independent of just Collingswood. For instance, if the general population moved towards more people having degrees (which it did), then that helps to explain the increase in Collingswood's numbers if they followed a similar increase (which they did). What I see in the data is a trend of people who started college actually following through and getting an associates and then a trickle down of that through the numbers.
What I contested was that Collingswood itself had radically changed. Sure, an extra couple hundred people with more advanced degrees in a town of 14k is an improvement. However, I suspected and feel that the numbers prove that there was no radical change in the makeup of the town over the past 10 years.
The DFG's are baselined on the overall state. So, the criteria of what letter grade a town earns changes slightly each year based on the state as a whole. It could be as simple a case as Collingswood being a solid "DE" that became a very low "FG" in 2000 and then moved back into very high "DE". As for improvement, based on the HSPA scores, they have been declining since 2002, only recently this past year getting back to their 2002 levels. It is hard to gauge "performance" solely off of that, but it would seem the school may have been "better" in 2002 then it was later. Correlation, perhaps...causation, probably not.
Sorry if I offended anyone. Obviously you have more experience in the area than I do, having grown up there. So ill default to your input on the area in the past.
However, there cant be any refuting that Collingswood has a better reputation than it did 10-15 years ago. Its practically mentioned in every new article written about the area, and weather they are based on tangible factors or not, perception becomes reality. I also have tons of aniqdotle evidence from long time New Jerseyans from all over the state who wanted nothing to do with Collingswood, and now love it
I should probably be the one apologizing, I came off a little too strong and it wasn't really called for.
With that said, yes, the reputation of Collingswood has improved considerably and that reputation may be drawing people into the town to settle there. The borough is very good at shameless self promotion and there is nothing wrong with that.
My argument is that I still see the "real" Collingswood pretty much the same as its always been. It has a much better veneer these days, but underneath the town is still very much like it was when I was growing up. Obviously I would take the good reputation over the "eww, you live in Collingswood" rep it used to have, but again, that doesn't mean the town is really "different" like the brochures say it is.
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I think you misinterpreted what I was trying to say there, or I did a poor job explaining that point... I was trying to relay the verifiable fact that students from any crummy school (Camden for example) who's family try to relocate them to better schools (via charter schools, anchor kids, or moving) always out perform their peers from that crummy school on average, weather they successfully leave the crummy school or not. This is because the students have family that value their education, which is a very large factor in determining educational success. They just dont have the good schools system.
I can agree with that point. The family and home environment ultimately has the greater impact on a child reaching their educational potential then the school does. Though, both can hurt a child's chance for ultimate success.
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I think you might be misinterpreting Mr Anderson here. At least I hope you are.... It sounds like you paraphrase that as 'the school is struggling because it has a group of kids from less successful socio-economic backgrounds, and those kids perform poorly, and lower the school performance as a whole'.... I interpret Mr Anderson's quotes to mean the same thing that you pointed out with your other table,
Meaning they are getting unprepared students form a sub-par primary school system (i.e. "background") and therefore the HS has to try getting them up to speed with the rest of the prepared students every time they get a new freshman class. Therefore its very difficult to improve the HS as a whole while playing catch-up for a large chunk of the students.
My paraphrasing was more tongue-in-cheek, but yes, we are in agreement on the macro point. Basically what I was trying to get it is that the kids from Woodlynne are the problem (for whatever reason) when it comes to the performance of the high school.
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I think this is where we unfortunately will not find any common ground (and talk about 'tone')...
My wife's credentials and experience (TCNJ honors BA in Ed, PhD in Sociology, several years evaluating Abbott schools for the NJ department of Ed) means Ill value her opinion and research more than anyone in the state. And anyone with more Ed-cred would likely have similar view points as us and the supreme court. The Abbott program has definitively improved school preparedness in those districts (Woodlynne is not one of them). And the full effectiveness of the program wont be measured until children born durning the program graduate HS, as many of the important resources target families and communities, not just the school itself. Nobody is saying just throw money at the problem, that has been shown to not work. However the Abbott program does.
Well, I'll throw my "creds" out there. BA in Political Science from Boston College with a minor in economics. Not quite the same as your wifes in terms of education, but not exactly schlup territory either.
The Abbott Districts have been in existence since 1985. We are now entering our 27th year of the "Abbott Experiment". We don't need to wait for kids to go all the way through the "new" system to see how they do, we've already graduated ~15 classes that were entirely educated under Abbott.
Columbia University did an indepth study of the Abbott system in NJ that was published in 2009 and based on decades of data, including following multiple classes of kids from pre-K through the entire Abbott system. The work was titled, "New Jersey's Decades-Long School Finance Case: So, What's the Payoff?"
What the Columbia researchers found was that there was an increase in performance at the lower levels the kids who were entirely educated in the Abbott system starting at pre-K had narrowed the gaps in their performnce, but were still below the state averages. However, they also found that any performance gains earned in the early years were completely erased by the time the kids reached middle and high school. The study quoted the former Assistant Comissioner of Education under Corzine as saying:
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When you get to middle school, eighth grade, high school – forget about it. This has been a huge failure.
Abbott has merit in principle, kids from impoverished areas should not be punished at the state level in terms of having an equal access to education. However, the piece that goes well beyond the funding is the family structure and influence on these kids. The school systems cannot fix/replace the family structures no matter how hard they try.
If anything, I think you are supporting that assertion by claiming the role of family to be the largest influence on a child realizing their educational potential. Certainly Abbott has helped the relatively small group of kids that were being failed by the schools they were in. What it has failed at and is inherently incapable of doing is fixing the failed social structures that are impacting the vast majority.
Of course, when we start talking about addressing the root causes of systemic poverty, it is a very different discussion then saying we need to provide equal funding to schools so kids in the inner city have computers and nice buildings. The fact of the matter remains that students with far less financial support in their suburban school districts continually perform far better than kids in the Abbott districts with all the funding in the world.
I have not read one independent study or review that considered Abbott to be a success. The only people touting the success has been the Educational Law Center that brought the original and subsequent law suits and the educators that run the Abbott districts, but even some of them have been recently quoted as saying the system isn't working. If you want to measure "success" as moving the bar a few points for elementary kids at a cost of billions upon billions of dollars, then sure, it was a "success", but I don't share that view. The goal was to make the Abbott's perform to the level of the suburban districts and after 27 years we are no closer to that goal.
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I appreciate that, and I had actually hoped that you might side with me when I made that first post. Cutting Woodlynne out of the school system would improve the HS immediately, and is probably the easiest thing to do to improve it. And I follow the reasoning that [ better HS = more new residences = more businesses/rateables/people/taxes etc etc etc. ]
It would be the "easiest" on paper, but the most difficult overall. Though we are in agreement that in order for Collingswood to live up to its new image, it must improve the quality of education. If not, people will continue to pass it over when they are considering buying a home. Consider it part of Collingswoods identity crisis. Is it a hip, NJ version of Manayunk, in which case the schools don't really matter. Or, is it as the mayor puts it, "Mayberry", in which case it better have a top end suburban school system.
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I just hoped might you (and everyone) would consider an alternative solution. Cutting Woodlynne out would essentially takes away the the best thing that town has going for it, and essentially turn it into a part of Camden. I would rather have the prospect of a decent education and life in Collingswood spread toward Camden, than have the street life and no prospects of Camden spread toward Collingswood.
Collingswood has spent decades fighting the "Camden Creep", meaning the seemingly ever expanding influence of Camden on the surrounding communities. Collingswood has taken a very interventionist role in Woodlynne as it has spiraled downward over the years. The question remains can Collingswood tax payers support trying to fix Woodlynne and keep it as a bulwark against Camden while simultaneously funding the mayor's vision of Mayberry and addressing its own issues? I don't live there, but you do. Do you want to see your tax dollars being spent supporting Woodlynne or trying to fix Collingswoods issues.
I look at the apartment towers and the mess that they have become after their brief revitalization and I look at the seemingly endless downward spiral of West Collingswood that used to be a much more vibrant part of the town and I question exactly what direction Collingswood is taking. Perhaps it's not the time to be altruistic towards Woodlynne and instead focus more on getting real about what Collingswood is, what the issues are and what direction to take the town. Ultimately I fear Maley and others have been drinking their own Kool-Aid for far too long.
What the Columbia researchers found was that there was an increase in performance at the lower levels the kids who were entirely educated in the Abbott system starting at pre-K had narrowed the gaps in their performnce, but were still below the state averages. However, they also found that any performance gains earned in the early years were completely erased by the time the kids reached middle and high school...
...
...What it has failed at and is inherently incapable of doing is fixing the failed social structures that are impacting the vast majority.
That echos closely what my wife's sentiments have been, as Im sure she is aware of it as well.
I think we see this as showing effectiveness in improving young students preparedness while the major factors in their education are still their family and school. However, their peers and community become more dominant factors once they reach middle and high school age, and those are harder to improve through this system.
I look at the Collingswood/Woodlynne situation and see an unique opportunity. Invest resource in a failing primary school like an Abbott district, and then once those reach the age where most Abbott districts lose control, the students go to a viable HS in a safer community (Collingswood). Rather than What we have seen with sending promising students to a HS within the same Abbott district, and which has less sustainable improvements created for it.
Its just a theory, but its not so far fetched I think.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Of course, when we start talking about addressing the root causes of systemic poverty, it is a very different discussion then saying we need to provide equal funding to schools so kids in the inner city have computers and nice buildings
You are right, but unfortunately those two discussions should be one and the same.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
The fact of the matter remains that students with far less financial support in their suburban school districts continually perform far better than kids in the Abbott districts with all the funding in the world.
And that is evidence as to why they should be.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Do you want to see your tax dollars being spent supporting Woodlynne or trying to fix Collingswoods issues.
In a word, Yes. I am in a comfortable situation (even though I am forced to short sell a house in Connecticut I moved out of 2 years ago), and would rather pay higher taxes that I do now, if it meant smart investments would be made in education. Whether they are in Collingswood, Woodlynne, Camden, or Djibouti.
I think we are viewing this system differently... Humor me.... You seem to look at living in a school district as an investment. One where you hope to make the best return on that investment through good property values, and the best probability of well educated children (perhaps?) or neighbors' children.
I see it that way to some extent, but also as - where can I put my investment that will have the biggest impact. Could my investment into this community (buying a house, paying taxes, but also sending my future children to its schools along with their relatively privileged position) help its overall curb appeal, hipness (probably not) socio-econ status, or school rankings?
(Just an aside, the short-sale house in CT is in one of the best school districts in the state, and lost 28% of its value since 2007.)
Ill have to get back to you on where the Abbott time-line fits in. Im pretty sure I recall my wife talking about something starting in '02, '03, or something around there.
IMO, that is the "missing" component to Collingswood, not gastro pubs and wine bars, they need to fix the education or people are just going to continue picking the other local options and driving to Collingswood to be hip on the weekends. The vast majority of people I went to school with still live in the immediate area. Very few of them live in Collingswood. That tells me something.[/quote]
I have to agree. The root planters are the young families and Haddon Twp has it over Colls in this area. With the politics involved, there is no way you will just be able to cut Woodlyne loose because of poorer performers. Governor Christie and Trenton believe that is the job of teachers, not parents, to raise children to be A+ students every day for 6 hours.
The Abbott Districts have been in existence since 1985. We are now entering our 27th year of the "Abbott Experiment". We don't need to wait for kids to go all the way through the "new" system to see how they do, we've already graduated ~15 classes that were entirely educated under Abbott.
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Originally Posted by jasomm
Ill have to get back to you on where the Abbott time-line fits in. Im pretty sure I recall my wife talking about something starting in '02, '03, or something around there.
I got a little refresher about the details....
- The original court case was in 1985, but follow up cases and suits continued until the early 1990s.
- The Abbott districts weren't even designated until 1997
- The State office for developing, implementing, budgeting, managing, and assessing the program wasn't completely established until about 2000
- The first year that really had approved programming and full staffing of program coordinators, Master Teachers, properly trained teachers, etc would be about 2003.
So the first class that could actually be useful as an analysis of the program was 3 years old in 2000-2003, and will graduate in 2015-2018. (which means a legitimate study probably wont be completed until 2018-2020). Its important that people understand that the children need to have started the full program in Pre-K as it is largely about being prepared for the next level of education, and growing up with school being a good experience. A big problem with this is that many students from these districts dont stay in them for very long. (I think i recall ~25% turnover within any given school year).
The program is often sited as having good results for early Ed, but not being effective in middle/high school, which makes sense if Abbott mid/high schools have students who haven't had good experiences with what school is before hand, and their families are not vested in the program either. Those students are introduced to the Abbott program schools at the later grades.
The program has been successful enough for Connecticut, Florida (last I heard), and I think Maryland and California(?) to use it as a model to improve some of their poorer school districts, or implement a similar state wide program.
- The original court case was in 1985, but follow up cases and suits continued until the early 1990s.
- The Abbott districts weren't even designated until 1997
- The State office for developing, implementing, budgeting, managing, and assessing the program wasn't completely established until about 2000
- The first year that really had approved programming and full staffing of program coordinators, Master Teachers, properly trained teachers, etc would be about 2003.
So the first class that could actually be useful as an analysis of the program was 3 years old in 2000-2003, and will graduate in 2015-2018. (which means a legitimate study probably wont be completed until 2018-2020). Its important that people understand that the children need to have started the full program in Pre-K as it is largely about being prepared for the next level of education, and growing up with school being a good experience. A big problem with this is that many students from these districts dont stay in them for very long. (I think i recall ~25% turnover within any given school year).
The program is often sited as having good results for early Ed, but not being effective in middle/high school, which makes sense if Abbott mid/high schools have students who haven't had good experiences with what school is before hand, and their families are not vested in the program either. Those students are introduced to the Abbott program schools at the later grades.
The program has been successful enough for Connecticut, Florida (last I heard), and I think Maryland and California(?) to use it as a model to improve some of their poorer school districts, or implement a similar state wide program.
Your timeline is correct, it was a long and complicated process, but the funding was fully equalized in 1997, which was the entire point of Abbott to begin with. So we do have a couple cycles of students that benefitted from the increased spending, which was the focus of the Columbia study.
The pre-school and other interventionary programs were put in place as early as 2000/1 in many districts. We do have some evidence as to how succesful it's been. A child who started 3 year old pre-school in 2003 would have been a 5th grader in 2011. The latest rounds of testing continue to show that Abbott students even at the elementary level, while improving over past years slightly are still far below the state average. So, a child in Newark that had access to all of the Abbott programs in their full force and enjoyed more educational opportunity and support then a child in virtually ANY suburban district is still failing compared to those same suburban kids.
So, take the entire high school aspect out of it and only focus on what has happened since 2003 and the results still are not overwhelmingly positive. There are a a couple of Abbott schools that have been succesful, but the majority are still abysmal failures despite all the resources a school could ever need. At this point the state has apparently spent since 1997 over $25 BILLION on the 31 Abbott districts and they are still failing.
For the cost of educating one child in Newark per year, we could send them to Sidwell Friends with Obama's kids, one of the most elite private schools in the nation. There are multiple reports of corruption and wasted money at all levels in the Abbott's. The state itself has admitted to not tightly enough controlling where the money was going.
You are fine with this because you're altruistic, I'm not. I see the money poured down the drain on the Abbott districts, I see no real improvement in those schools by any real measure and most importantly I look at my taxes and realize how much higher they are because of this decision.
As for other states looking at it, other states courts have used the Abbott decisions as a basis for their own decisions regarding inequalities in school funding. Most of the other decisions have revolved around guaranteeing some minimum level of funding, not nearly the expansive reach of Abbott or mandating that the poorest must be funded equal to the richest.
I feel this is something we will never reach consensus on. You are happy to spend billions to move the bar an inch, I see it as a waste, even though it had good intentions.
I have to agree. The root planters are the young families and Haddon Twp has it over Colls in this area. With the politics involved, there is no way you will just be able to cut Woodlyne loose because of poorer performers. Governor Christie and Trenton believe that is the job of teachers, not parents, to raise children to be A+ students every day for 6 hours.
I don't know if Christie necessarily believes that, or Trenton in general. Certainly the NJ Supreme Court believes that. Christie has made several statements about the key to education being parents and has tap danced around saying that failing schools fail because of failing parents/families.
That gets us back to Collingswood. I think we are both in agreement that it's all about attracting and retaining young families and that is done with schools. Not everyone is nearly as altruistic as jasomm, though I would venture it is the people like him that would engender "grass roots" change to happen if it was possible.
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