New Year New School - Part 1

This is the first of a four part January series on the BOE.

by Joe Madrigrano

January begins a new term for our Board of Education coming on the heels of a long election season, the departure of board members, lawsuits, accusations and a major financial impact across households across our little city. In April, we reviewed a number of the arguments before the Board of Education and discussed a factbase behind them. Many of the same arguments carried through the election as well as new talking points emerging for consideration.

The first discussion focuses on the state of education in Asbury Park, later discussions look into potential causes and the factbase behind them and the final section discusses suggestions that have been proposed for addressing the situation.

THE STATE OF EDUCATION

Simply, our schools continue to fail our children. Some have contended the schools have done the best they can, given the limitations of student populations, and the situation has resolved itself sufficiently. The data seem to indicate otherwise. Certainly, test scores do not include all of the nuance of a student’s experience in schools, the ability to do math and reading are perhaps the most basic function of a community school.

First, our kids perform at the bottom of the state proficiency exams. Our schools, based on the most recent proficiency tests, rank in the 4th percentile (3.7%). That means 97% of schools in our state perform better than our students

Second, arguments have been made that the special nature of our students means performance will remain perpetually low and cannot be improved. Evidence from around the country and, in particular, lower income districts in New Jersey shows established techniques like tutoring, afterschool programs and summer acceleration programs can positively impact student performance

Third, some point to higher graduation rates as signs of positive progress. Research seems to indicate the ‘higher graduation rates’ stem from the “Floor 64” program which gives every enrolled student a bare minimum grade that is passing. Students can graduate without successfully completing a homework assignment, quiz or exam. We simply hand them a piece of paper regardless of whether they demonstrated any knowledge attainment or not. Stories have reported of ‘graduates’ whose reading skills were too limited to fill out a job application, and efforts to feed ‘graduates’ into local trade union apprentice programs were unsuccessful because kids lacked the math skills for the job.

Fourth, the data shows not only have our students performed poorly, they continue to fall farther behind their peers across the state. It is not getting better, it’s getting worse.

Our performance at the school district cannot continue. It is hoped the newly composed board will finally put the children first in planning and focus on improving educational outcomes to create economic opportunity. Our community deserves a school system it can be proud of.

KEY SOURCES:

Academic performance acceleration at comparable schools: https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2025/02/how-nine-low-income-j-school-districts-overcame-pandemic-slump-outperformed/
Floor 64 program boosting graduation rates: https://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/education/2025/09/08/asbury-park-schools-boosted-graduation-rates-but-performance-stayed-poor/82874545007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z11—-p000550n11—-c11—-d00—-v007699o11—-d–46–&gca-ft=220&gca-ds=sophi ; https://www.pbs.org/video/asbury-park-evaluation-system-makes-it-almost-impossible-for-students-to-fail-1758125548/
Students continuing to underperform peers https://www.nj.gov/education/spr/tableau_dashboard.shtml?CountyCode=25&DistrictCode=0100&SchoolCode=010&viewType=school&rptType_s=3
Former Board President says district’s issues are solved: https://njedreport.com/asbury-park-is-on-the-rise-says-board-president/
AP performance percentile research: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-jersey/districts/asbury-park-school-district/asbury-park-high-school-12458