School District In The Caldwells Ranks High On New 'Best' List

NORTH CALDWELL, NJ — The West Essex School District — which serves North Caldwell, Essex Fells, Fairfield, and Roseland — appeared in the top 25 districts on a "best" school districts list released this week by Niche.com, a website known for its extensive rankings of schools, universities, and communities.

Of the more than 400 public school districts in New Jersey, Essex County has placed three in the top 15.

Millburn placed number 1, and Livingston placed 7th. Both districts also had their high schools place on a top-25 list of best high schools.

Also on the district-wide list, the West Essex School District came out high: Number 14.

On the separate list of best public high schools, West Essex High School came in at number 64. Most of the top 10 public high schools are regional magnet schools.

The high school received an overall Niche grade of A, with A's for teachers, college prep, academics, and clubs. It received a B+ for administration and B- for diversity.

Read the history of the West Essex district here.

The List And Controversy Over Rankings

The educational consulting company released rankings Tuesday that include updated data for 92,743 public schools, 30,112 private schools and 11,820 school districts nationwide.

The platform is unique in that it combines ratings from current students, alumni and parents with quantitative data.

Here are New Jersey's highest-ranking districts:

1. Millburn Township School District
2. Northern Valley Regional High School District (Demarest)
3. Princeton Public Schools
4. West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District
5. Ridgewood Public School District
6. Tenafly Public School District
7. Livingston Board of Education School District
8. Summit Public School District
9. Pascack Valley Regional High School District (Montvale)
10. Mountain Lakes School District
11. Moorestown Township Public School District
12. South Brunswick School District
13. Bernards Township School District
14. West Essex Regional School District (North Caldwell)
15. Haddonfield Public Schools
16. Holmdel Township School District
17. Westfield Public School District
18. New Providence School District
19. Mahwah Township Public School District
20. Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School District (Oakland)
21. The School District of the Chathams
22. Edison Township School District
23. Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District
24. River Dell Regional School District (River Edge)
25. Glen Rock Board of Education

Niche gave them all A-plus grades, except for Glen Rock, which received an A.

Rankings Controversial

The rankings help parents make informed decisions on their children's education, according to Niche CEO Luke Skurman.

But high school rankings have their critics. In 2013, former professor and Atlantic writer John Tierney argued that high school rankings are "nonsense."

"Parents might be able to use that information to find an affordable residence near good schools, while still leaving themselves within reasonable reach of their place of employment," Tierney wrote. "It's harder to fathom the logic for ranking high schools nationwide. Few are the families who will move out of state or across the country on the basis of claims about school quality."

School ratings have the power to drive segregation, contends Jack Schneider, an associate professor of education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

"There’s evidence that this is already happening via websites like GreatSchools.org and Niche.com," Schneider wrote last October for WBUR.

Find out more about the rankings and methodology here.

Editor Josh Bakan contributed to this report.