schools - questions about Jersey City magnet schools (Hoboken, Livingston: 2013, school districts)

[wheretosend]

I have a dilemma: I'm living in Jersey City and have a kid who needs to start K from 2013 fall. Until a month ago, I had my mind all made up to move out to the suburbs with better schools (Milburn, Livingston and a whole list) by next spring.

However, I recently met a person who is involved with a lot of school districts about designing their curriculum (and on the boards lot of educational agencies including designing NJASK tests). He said that rankings using NJASK/HSPA are purely noise even though NJASK/HSPA is very tough. This is because the ranking groups scores by Advanced Proficient, Proficient and Partially Proficient - and the Advanced Proficient (AP) level is usually kept quite low; and many schools can get a lot of high % of AP students on NJASK/HSPA. He said that a better barometer is alternative High School scores (like 75th percentile of SAT score).

He further advised me to stick with Jersey City and get coaching for my kid to get through Mc Nair/other Hudson County magnet schools, and said that if my kid can be 1-2 grades ahead of the school year, then it's easy to get through magnet schools. I was quite encouraged to hear that, since coaching to make my kid around 2 grades ahead may be plausible for us, given that we have a lot of years before she needs to go to high school.

So, based on this new information, this weekend, I finally downloaded data from NJ DOE to look at SAT scores as the primary guidelines to short list school districts. To my surprise, I saw that the Jersey City/Hudson County magnet schools aren't that great on SAT scores. Mc Nair is 54st on 75th percentile SAT scores (when averaged over 08-11, averaged over Math/LA) of 1267, and the Hudson County Vocation (High Tech High) is 53rd with 75th percentile SAT score of 1268. The 1st on the list is Monmouth County's High Tech High (Lincroft) with 75th percentile SAT score of 1507, and regular good, but non-magnet, high schools like WWP-S, Milburn & WWP-N have similar scores of 1407, 1398 and 1390, much higher than magnet schools like Mc Nair's scores / Hudson County High Tech's scores - although they do score a little better (e.g. 37th & 47th) when ranked via average scores SAT instead of 75th percentile SAT.

1. Why would people (& rankings) consistently Mc Nair a very good and a magnet school, when its SAT scores are low in comparison with other regular schools?

2. In general, why is there some discrepancy for schools like Mc Nair on HSPA versus SAT ?


p.s. I'm sorry, I meant no offense to anyone, particularly to current Mc Nair students or their parents. Just asking a simple question ....

[daliowa]

One word answer - move.

If you want to continue to live there try looking at All Saints Episcopal in Hoboken. Our son got an excellent education there.

It's tough to get a spot in the lower grades, so start having your child intereviewed by any private school you choose to try to get in.

Keep in mind private schools don't offer transportation, so be prepared to schlep your kid back & forth twice a day. Believe me, it gets old real quick.

I strongly suggest moving to a good school district now. Believe me, you'll end up having to move.

[Citizen01]

This is a question that most jersey city/Hoboken parents seem to have. We do notice that the families are staying longer than they used to. The question by the OP above is a very good question. Wondering if moving is the only answer?