Majority of Brick Students Beat State Counterparts

This article is part two in a series of articles on Brick's school system we will feature this week on Brick Patch. On Monday, we examined the state's progress ranking for our district. Today, we are featuring a breakdown of the scores, and on Wednesday, we will look into which schools are in need of improvement according to the state.

Though several Brick schools are not making annual yearly progress according to test results as calculated by the state, the vast majority of Brick students receive proficient or higher scores on standardized tests and, in nearly all cases, surpass the percentage of students statewide who receive passing scores.

Yesterday, Brick Patch reported on the state's definition of "annual yearly progress" and in the mix. Today, we examine the test results themselves for the district as a whole, rather than broad, school-by-school rankings.

The school district recently provided data to the public from the 2010-11 school year standardized test results, derived from the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, or NJASK, tests given to students in grades three through eight, and the High School Proficiency Assessment, or HSPA, given to high school juniors. The results are illustrated in the chart below. A more extensive chart can be found at the district's website.

The numbers listed below are the percentages of students who scored proficient or advanced proficient – essentially, a passing score – on state tests. There are comparisons to the state average and other schools in Brick's district factor group, which are school districts that are socioeconomically similar to Brick. Local communities listed in the same DFG as Brick include Toms River, Lavallette, Lacey Township and Stafford Township.

The final column of the chart indicates the state's minimum percentage of students scoring proficiently for the district to be considered to be achieving annual yearly progress by the state.