West Windsor Elementary School Ranks High in Student Performance

By: Anthony Bellano

Maurice Hawk Elementary School, in West Windsor, ranked eighth among elementary schools in student performance in the New Jersey Campaign for Achievement Now’s (JerseyCAN) school report cards, the organization announced on Wednesday.

Every school was graded in the report card, and JerseyCAN compiled top 10 lists for all elementary, middle and high schools in the state.

Schools were judged based on student performance, performance of the school’s subgroup, achievement gap performance gains, and four-year cohort high school graduation rates.

Maurice Hawk scored a 96.6 percent at or above proficiency rating in student performance. The highest ranked school on the list was Bay Head Elementary School, which scored 100 percent.

Student performance is based on the average percentage of students who are at or above proficiency in the reading and math categories in the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) for the highest grade tested at their school. Maurice Hawk’s highest grade level is fifth.

“As kids start getting their report cards, it is just as important for parents to know how their schools are doing,” JerseyCAN Executive Director Janellen Duffy said in a prepared statement. “We believe in using data to guide decision-making in education, whether it’s decisions parents are making about schools or policy decisions that are being made at the state and local level. These report cards are a tool for such data-driven decision-making primarily aimed to help parents.  They are an easy-to-use representation of the data that shows exactly how each New Jersey school is performing on key indicators that track the achievement gap.”

This is the pilot year for JerseyCAN’s school report cards.

JerseyCAN launched in the spring as an education research and policy organization that brings together top educators from across the state. JerseyCAN provides educators with research and policy analysis to enact smart education policy.