By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
A discussion on the finer details of race, economic backgrounds and how well pupils perform in a school setting kicked off a new series of public conversations within the Hillsborough Township Board of Education., During the school board’s final meeting of 2016, held on Dec. 19, Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff pointed to analytical data at the local, state and national level to address existing achievement gaps among students., “Is our kids’ achievement similar or identical irregardless of race, irregardless of gender, irregardless of economic status? The answer is no,” Dr. Schiff said. “We have some work to do in that area.”, Described by School Board President Thomas Kinst as a way for the board to “talk about different issues that the district faces (internally)…or as a district within the state,” the new monthly series of discussions will allow officials to publicly discuss those issues without having to take official action., Officials said the first talk, titled “Thought Provoking Data: Strategic Planning 2017-2022,” was not unlike other discussions of public importance in the past., For the district’s first topic, Dr. Schiff referenced back to an April article in the New York Times titled “Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares,” which utilized data from a Stanford University study of 11,000 school districts that focused on student achievement gaps based on location, race and socio-economic factors., The data accounted for how far above or below students fared based on their grade level., That type of information, Dr. Schiff said, was important to help the district improve how it serves the township’s pupils., “As a district, we’re always looking at closing achievement gaps, whether they are gender based, whether they’re students whose first language may not be English, in an effort to make sure that regardless of a student’s background…that all students have opportunities to be high-performing,” Dr. Schiff said., According to the study, Hillsborough Township students perform an average of two grade levels higher than the national average., When that data was split off into racial delineations, however, it showed that white students generally performed better than Hispanic students, who did better than African-American students., Former school board member Dev Dutta said he had some issues with the study’s findings, pointing out that some parts of the country generally do better than others., “If you look at the (data concerning) blacks or Hispanic students in the coastal areas versus those in middle America, there is a huge variance,” Mr. Dutta said. “That’s a bias that was never taken to account, so to some extent, this does not show the disparity in education.”, Dr. Schiff also pointed to analysis conducted by the district that compared the 2016 Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) passing rates by race with the same figures collated by the state., In that data, board members were shown that by and large, Hillsborough consistently performed better than the state average., When split up by race that same information revealed that African-American and Hispanic students were not performing as well as their Asian and White counterparts., “In every single ethnic or racial category, the performance of Hillsborough students are above the state,” Dr. Schiff said. “, According to the superintendent, the student body is comprised of approximately “two-thirds white, about 15 percent Asian-American, about seven percent black and about seven percent Hispanic.”, “It’s very important in a district with high performance is that we’re always trying to identify where we can serve our children best and never rest on our high achievement,” he said., Though testing results are important, officials were also provided information on how each racial group fares with graduation and life after high school., To that end, information from the 2014-15 Public School Report Card for Hillsborough High School showed that the district’s overall graduation rate for nearly all applicable student types exceeded the state target of 78 percent., Approximately 99 percent of the district’s Asian pupils graduated. Similarly, 95 percent of the district’s White students graduated that year. African-American and Asian students, however, graduated at a rate of 87 percent., One area that did not meet the state’s target for successful graduation was students with disabilities, of which only 75 percent graduated., Those numbers, however, could have problems with how they were calculated, since it is based on graduation after four years., “Some of our kids need a little more time to finish up and graduate…this data and how we calculate it just changed two years ago,” Dr. Schiff said. “We have students who we educate until 21 years old, so those would not be calculated.”, Of those that graduated, 86 percent of the district’s seniors went on to post-secondary education and stayed there for 16 months. The state-wide target is 78.5 percent., In the district, Asian-American and White students that continued on to college did so at a rate of 93 percent and 85 percent, respectively, while 79 percent of Hispanic students continued their education. African-American students did not factor in that data set., Referencing those students that either did not go on to college or did not stick with it, Dr. Schiff asked whether the district was doing enough for those students in particular., “We have to ask ourselves, as we talk about strategic planning, if we have provided every opportunity that we can for students who may not be going to college,” “Have we provided them with technical and career opportunities to position them well to have a living wage job after they get out of our program.”, Alternate curriculum opportunities, such as vocational schooling, are currently available in Hillsborough, but less than one percent of the student body participates., “We should evolve from this sense that if you’re not going to college, that there’s something wrong with that,” Dr. Schiff said. “There are many people that can be advantaged by learning the trades and having experiences in that way.”, “We do a wonderful job preparing our kids for college, but I question whether or not we do a wonderful job for those kids that don’t go to college,” he continued., Throughout the discussion, various board members chimed in with their own comments and questions. Board member Gregory Gillette warned of some pitfalls that he said could exist in the quest for pure equality., “Not only do I think we need to pursue equality of opportunity for our students, we need to ensure it,” he said. “But I’d be cautious about beginning to chase equality of achievement for our students because that’s a money pit that we will never get out of.”, Basing decisions on racial and achievement data alone, he said, might not be enough information to safely and efficiently make changes., “I’m very uncomfortable looking at racial divisions – did we look at information about single-family homes? That might be much more important than economic level or race,” he said. “I think some of those distinctions are cultural and I wouldn’t want to get involved in that either.”, Board member Judith Haas agreed with some of Mr. Gillette’s concerns., “I think what we have to do is stop seeing kids in categories all together and stop looking for background areas,” she said. “I think every person on this board and every employee in this district…have to deeply believe that every kid can learn. They have to feel that.”
