LHS Academics Rated as Average on New School Performance Reports

In the first year of a new evaluation system put in place by the New Jersey Department of Education, Lawrence High School's academic performance rated as average when compared to schools across the state and to schools with similar demographics, but scored high on college and career readiness.

“These new school performance reports were developed with the input of stakeholders across the state and provide a significant amount of new data to present a more complete picture of school performance,” said Commissioner Chris Cerf. “We hope this data will help schools and stakeholders engage in local goal setting and improvement to help all students graduate from high school ready for college and career.”

The NJ School Performance reports for 2011-12 includes new data on college and career readiness, while providing comparison to “peer schools” in order to provide a more complete overview of performance for educators and the public, according to the DOE. 

Peer schools have similar grade levels and demographic characteristics, including the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, limited English proficiency programs and special education programs. Included in Lawrence's peer schools are Edison, Old Bridge, Red Bank and Brick.

Lawrence's academic performance rated average when compared to schools across the state and average when compared to its peers.

However, LHS college and career readiness rated high when compared to schools across the state and rated high when compared with its peers.

The LHS graduation and post-secondary performance rated average when compared to schools across the state, while its graduation and post-secondary readiness is average when compared to peer schools.

Under Academic Achievement on the HSPA, which measures the total school-wide proficiency rate in both Language Arts Literacy and Math across multiple administrations of the assessment, LHS scored a 96 percent rating on HSPA Language Arts Proficiency, higher than 61 percent of schools statewide and in its peer group. LHS scored 87 percent on Math Proficiency, higher than 50 percent of schools statewide and 48 percent in its peer group.

For NCLB requirements on the HSPA, LHS exceeded the target proficiency rating for both Math and Language Arts. LHS also exceeded NCLB requirements for graduation rates with a 88.1 percent school performance rating.

A total of 52 percent of LHS students were enrolled in an institution of higher education nationwide 16 months after graduating high school, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.

On Advanced Placement exams, 91 percent of LHS students scored a three out of five or higher on Math, English, Social Studies and Science, a score that earns college credit. LHS rated higher than 87 percent of schools statewide in that category.

On SAT exams, 42 percent of LHS students who took the exam scored a 1,550 or higher, which outperformed 80 percent of schools statewide. The LHS composite SAT score was 1,530, which scored above the peer average of 1,516.

“While the evaluation of student outcome data is crucial for school improvement, we know that these data alone cannot capture the dozens of other essential elements of schools such as a positive school climate, participation in extracurricular programs and the development of non-cognitive skills,” said Chief Performance Office Bari Erlichson. “However, by focusing on college and career readiness and including meaningful comparisons for schools, we hope that these new reports will inform conversations at the local level about where schools are doing well and where they can continue to improve.”

Click here for the full performance reports.