It took a while, but the online service Schooldigger.com has completed its aggregated rankings of the state’s public schools based on the 2009-10 Connecticut standardized test results which were first released in late July.
And the results show Greenwich continuing its decline as compared to other school districts – it fell from No. 40 in the state to No. 46.
Nine of the 11 elementary schools lost ground in the ranking of state public schools. And Riverside School has been overtaken by North Mianus as the highest ranking elementary school in Greenwich. North Mianus is 19, while Riverside slipped from 19 last year to No. 26.
Not all the news was bad. Eastern Middle School rose to No. 6 among middle schools from 10. And Central rose to 38 from 54 last year. But Western fell to 108 from 94.
The high school also had a marginal improvement to 22 from 26.
But the performance of the elementary schools is particularly troubling. If students are under-performing at an entry level, it makes it that much harder of a hill to climb as they matriculate through the system. School officials pointed this out after last week’s school board meeting when some members of that close-knit social club finally spoke out about the deteriorating scores.
I believe these aggregated rankings are the true measure of performance because they compare apples to apples. Each school district in the state has faced the same severe financial challenges. Yet, Greenwich has fallen faster and lower in rankings.
It takes an aggregator like schooldigger a few months to crunch all the data from the state. Once done, however, this data is shared and used by all manner of folks – including prospective homeowners. Over time, the erosion of our schools’ standing will hurt all of us.
I am awaiting other rankings to be compiled and will post them as soon as they are available.
Let’s not forget the fact that Greenwich High School ranks just 864th in terms of its Advanced Placement program in the most recent Newsweek “Best High Schools” ranking for 2010, several hundred places below where it placed just a few years ago. And that ranking doesn’t take into account that the school’s “Excellence & Equity” index declined last year. That ratio measures the percentage of graduating seniors who have taken and passed at least one AP test. GHS failed to garner even “honorable mention” status in the US News & World Report high school ranking, after being mentioned as a “silver medal” school the previous year. And the number of national merit finalists and commended scholars at GHS, a metric which BOE vice chairman Leslie Moriarty touted last year as a sign of the school system’s excellence and success, last year fell to less than half what it was just three years ago.
And though, bizarrely, all eight BOE members signed a letter to the editor touting the “success” of GHS’s AP program, in fact the percentage of seniors taking and passing at least one AP test hasn’t risen since 2004. The pass rate on AP tests taken is no better this year than it was in 2004 either. So not only does GHS’s AP program rank far below hundreds of other public schools in the country, not only does it rank below scores of schools in the New York metropolitan region, but its program hasn’t improved in years. That can hardly be termed a “success”.
But what is inexcusable is the school system’s attempt to whitewash the miserable and deteriorating test scores and convince parents and taxpayers that down was up, and deterioration was improvement. Communications director Kim Eves put out a press release with the ebullient and totally false claim that “CMT and CAPT Scores on the Rise”. The press release included proud and glowing quotes by the superintendent Sidney Freund, and claims of multi-year success. In fact, the truth about the scores was the opposite. And only after an article pointing out how poorly Greenwich public school students ranked compared with their peers in Connecticut was published by Greenwich Time did Dr. Freund make an embarrassing and total reversal of his position on the battery of test results. And only after a series of columns, editorials and further news articles pointing out the truth about the poor results did BOE members also begin to take off their rose-colored glasses and begin, however timidly, to express disappointment. Peter Scherr claim closest to telling the unvarnished truth about the state of our school system when he said his feeling was “outrage”. Inexplicably, that dishonest and misleading press release remains on the school system’s website without change, without apology.
But the truth about our school system’s poor academic performance is even better captured by Lincoln Millstein’s quote of the rankings in the state, because it shows that not only does Greenwich, one of the wealthiest towns in America with one of the best educated adult populations rank below all of its socio-economic peers in DRG A and DRG B, but it also ranks far below many poorer, hard-pressed school districts as well.
Worse, perhaps, is the school administrators’ suggestion that improvement will only be achieved “in the long-term”, that there is no “quick fix”, and Dr. Freund’s expressed goal of getting to the median of DRG B only after several years. This is the school system that once felt such pride in its academic superiority that it encapsulated that pride in its motto, which still is included on all district stationary: “Setting the standard for excellence in public education.”
It’s been many years since Greenwich set any standard for academic excellence. And this town doesn’t deserve to be forced to wait many years more to return to academic excellence.
It’s time to consider if the current administrators teachers, and BOE members are capable of returning this school system to excellence, or whether they have any serious interest in doing so. If not, perhaps it’s time to make a raft of personnel changes.
Comment by Sean — September 1st, 2010 @ 10:32 am
Check out the “Schooldigger” website that Lincoln Millstein cites, and ask yourself if there is any excuse whatsoever for Greenwich school students to underperform students in these school districts that rank higher:
Cheshire, Southington, schools in Deep River, CT (Regional District 4), Newtown, Sherman, Woodbridge, Guilford, Orange, Trumbull, Franklin. And many more.
Is there really any excuse? There is a deeply ingrained culture of mediocrity in the Greenwich Public School system that has de-emphasized academic excellence, and substituted the all-important goal cost-saving for years. The town let Hamilton Avenue School deteriorate so badly without simple repairs and upkeep that it eventually had to be torn down. Glenville School was only repaired after years of complaints by parents. Greenwich High School serves more than double the number of students as virtually any other school in the state. Why? Because the town government refuses to put up the funds to build a second high school and create normal-sized high schools in the town with greater attention to its students, and better opportunities. And now we see that the town is nickel-and-dimeing its new planned auditorium, cutting funds for new chairs and audio-visual equipment in order to reduce the budget by what amounts to just 0.13% of the town’s budget. In fact, it was just that sort of short-sighted scrimping that resulted in the present auditorium being too small for the high school as soon as it was built in the 1960′s. Yet the BOE chairman Anderson incredibly suggested that the cuts were in order because, “we don’t want to build a ‘Taj Mahal’”. All Mr. Anderson has to do is visit North Haven’s new auditorium, which is beautiful and far superior to both the current and planned GHS facilities, to understand that we’re not suggesting building a lavish gold-plated facility here, and that to suggest that pinching pennies in this wealthy town while a town like North Haven had no problem building an excellent facility tells us how horribly wrong our priorities are.
For this town, with the lowest property tax rate by far of any town in Connecticut, to pinch pennies on its school buildings and equipment like this is an outrage. For one of the wealthiest towns in the world to shortchange its public school system year after year, turn a blind eye to poor and deteriorating academic performance, and only think of penny-pinching is a disgrace.
Comment by Sean — September 1st, 2010 @ 10:51 am
Lincoln,
Want to be the superintendent of schools???? You are the only one who makes sense of this ridiculous situation in Greenwich. It will take several years, great leadership and vision, consistency, stability among teachers and administrators and a clear focus on specific targeted areas to make a difference. Most of all, trust and respect among staff must be reestablished. I’m not sure anyone stays long enough in Greenwich to make that happen or that the BOE allows the “educational leader” of the school system to be just that.
Comment by Alan — September 7th, 2010 @ 7:55 am
I don’t have great faith in the current cast of BOE members. All the incumbents who were present during the Betty Sternberg era should resign to give the school board fresh thinking and a new start. Also, there are many ways we can contribute from outside the system. We can all step up our support of preschool programs at the Greenwich Family Centers called Bright Beginnings . But even charitable organizations such as these have been too quiet sitting on the sidelines and not making waves when it’s apparent to all that the schools are in decline. Still, they have an infrastructure that supports educating the young before they enter kindergarten. If those programs can be accelerated, it would be a big help.
Comment by Lincoln Millstein — September 7th, 2010 @ 9:15 am