Brick High Schools Earn Cs In Rating Of N.J.'s Best Public Schools

Brick Township and Brick Memorial high schools received overall C grades in a recent rating of the best public schools across New Jersey, based on academics and a number of other factors.

The listing, produced by Niche, a website that tracks more than 22,000 schools across the country, rated more than 14,000 of them for its Best Public High Schools ranking, which “provides a comprehensive assessment of the overall experience at public high schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. It uses data sourced from various government and public data sets, Niche’s own proprietary data, and 4,625,227 opinion-based survey responses across a variety of topics from 287,560 current students, recent alumni, and parents.“

Niche, which bills itself as “transforming the way people make big life decisions. By providing reviews and insight from everyday experts, we make choosing a neighborhood, college, or K-12 school a more transparent process,” was founded in 2002 by a group of Carnegie Mellon University students as CollegeProwler.com.

For the Best Public Schools rankings, Niche rated schools based on a variety of factors, including academics, health and safety, student culture and diversity, teachers, facilities and resources and sports and fitness and student/parent surveys, with 50 percent of each school’s “grade” based on academics.

“Niche notes: “A high ranking in Overall Experience generally indicates that:

• Students are very happy with their experiences in all aspects, including academics, teachers, health, safety, resources, facilities, extracurriculars, sports, and fitness;
• The school is an exceptional academic institution in terms of teachers, students, resources for learning, and student outcomes;
• The school is made up of a diverse population and fosters an accepting, positive school culture;
• Students are actively involved in a variety of extracurriculars and sports the school offers.”

Brick Memorial fared better of the two schools, receiving a C+ and an overall ranking of 317. How many total public high schools schools are in the Niche New Jersey rankings is unclear, but there are 507 public high schools in the state, according to the state Department of Education.

Brick Memorial received B- in academics and teachers, and C+ in most of the other categories. The Niche ratings page noted: ”According to state standards, 85 percent of students at this school are considered proficient in math and/or reading. There have been 182 reviews written and they have been mixed.”

Read more about Brick Memorial’s ratings here.

Brick Township High School received a C- overall and was ranked No. 350, with a C+ in academics, student culture and diversity, and educational outcomes, and C- grades in several categories. It received a D+ for food. “According to state standards, 83 percent of students at this school are considered proficient in math and/or reading. There have been 157 reviews written and they have been mixed.”

Read more about Brick Township High School’s ratings here.

Only three Ocean County public schools cracked the top 100: the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science in Manahawkin at No. 18, Southern Regional High School (75), and Point Pleasant Beach at 93rd.

High Technology High School in Lincroft, which draws students from around Monmouth County who are focused on engineering, was ranked No. 1 in New Jersey and the nation by Niche.