Schools

New Brunswick High School Ranks 293rd Out of 328 High Schools in NJ

The rankings are done annually by NJ Monthly.

New Brunswick High School has been ranked at 293rd out of 328 public high schools in the state, according to a recent report by NJ Monthly.

The home of the Zebras fell nine places from 2010's rankings, when it came in at 282.

According to NJ monthly, the ratings were figured out using three main categories: by rating the performance of each school and rating the student outcomes of each school, using data gleaned from the state School Report Cards.

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School environment, which looks at areas such as class sizes, faculty to student ratio, and the number of faculty members with advanced degrees were also rated and added to the scores of the previous two categories to arrive at the final score, according to NJ Monthly.

A more comprehensive explanation of the ratings system can be found here.

Find out what's happening in New Brunswickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

NJ Monthly made changes to its methodology this year, including a new graduation-rate calculation, eliminating student/computer ratio as a factor and increasing the weighting for data on test results, according to the magazine:

“One of the biggest moves are fueled in part by New Jersey’s use of a new graduation-rate calculation. In the past, our rankings distinguished between students going on to four-year colleges, two-year colleges and other postsecondary schools. The data for students going to four-year colleges was given extra weight, making it a potent driver of the results. This year’s rankings use the new four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, introduced by New Jersey in 2011, as mandated by the federal government.

New Jersey Monthly made two other changes in compiling this year’s rankings: Because personal computers have become widespread among the high-school population, we eliminated student/computer ratio as a factor. More significantly, we increased the weighting for data on test results and the aforementioned graduation-rate calculation. The change in weighting is intended to emphasize the importance of student results at a time of budget cutting, when even the best schools must learn to do more with fewer resources.” according to the NJ Monthly Magazine article.

New Brunswick High School was located toward the bottom of the ratings list, as were many urban schools, including those in Elizabeth, Irvington, Patterson, Carteret, Bayonne and Pennsauken.

According to the NJ Monthly report, in 2012, New Brunswick High School's senior class, with 270 students, had an average class size of 18.6 students, and an average combined SAT score of 1263.

5.1 percent of students in the class scored above average in language arts on in the grade 11 HSPA standardized tests, and 10.2 percent scored above average in the math portion of the tests, according to the data.

For a full list of the 328 ranked schools in NJ, click here.


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