GUEST COLUMN

County defends parking count at ferry terminals

I would like to take this opportunity to expand upon my remarks in the March 1 Independent article. I stand by my remarks completely and believe it was an excellent article. I would ask anyone to carefully reread the entire article and each of my remarks. However, in contrast to the article, I believed it necessary to respond to the writer of the March 15 guest column. I called him in order to have him see firsthand what our test results have been in all areas tested and to share the written opinions of such organizations as the New Jersey School Boards Association, the New Jersey School Administrators Association, the New Jersey Education Association, the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association and others. They all have published statements that resemble my opinions. My call was not returned.

Our test scores in virtually every area on our many tests show our scores above the state and/or national average. We administer all of the state tests: the ESPA (elementary, fourth grade), the GEPA (middle school, eighth grade – which replaced the EWT), and the HSPT (high school, 11th grade-to soon be replaced by HSPA), the Terra Nova (elementary grades 2, 3, 5, and 6), and the SAT and ACT (college entrance examinations). Our results are good and respectable. Can they and should they be improved? Of course! I will continue to work hard at improving our results, and I will continue to make all results public as we did at our board meeting. Ms. Joan Vas, Dr. Margaret Lewis and Ms. Patricia Phillips have all of the information and will gladly share this with anyone. Anyone may call (732) 290-2705 to get in touch with them.

As this article stated, I fully support the New Jersey report cards, and I fully support the reporting of all test results to the public. I believe the tests should be reliable, have validity and should compare students across the state and the nation. I never stated that schools should not be compared. I thought it was implicit that the schools and districts would be compared by tests that are used throughout the country.

As for the comments with regard to world languages, I could not disagree more with the guest writer. I am personally fluent in two other languages (German and French) and have studied Latin. I am certified to teach foreign languages. I agree that Spanish is widely used and is an important part of our culture; however, I believe that children should be exposed to many languages and cultures, including Japanese, Chinese and a whole host of other languages and cultures. We presently start world language instruction in sixth grade. Students are offered advanced placement Spanish, French and Italian in our high school. I believe parents and students should be able to choose which language or languages the students will study. We will extend our world language instruction into our four elementary schools next year. My viewpoints are shared by many prominent state and national experts. I would be happy to supply their names and telephone numbers to anyone.

Lastly, the writer is obviously not familiar with literally hundreds of studies that deal with the correlations between achievement and socioeconomic status. As the Star-Ledger, The Asbury Park Press and the Independent have painstakingly pointed out, the New Jersey Department of Education has established "district factor groups" that are solely based on socioeconomic measures, and test scores are reported not only by school and contrasted against a state average, but are also compared to these district factor groups. In my commentary I made reference to one of our schools having the highest concentration of students on free lunch. It was to note that it was an enabling factor to which additional funds are made available through the state in order to provide programs to help students who need additional assistance. The state will provide us with additional funds – $143,310. We are very proud of the accomplishments of the students and faculty at the Cliffwood School, and we will work to see that the performance of the students in all of our schools rises to the highest levels possible. The Cliffwood building has been modernized as have all of our buildings. We have provided much technology to all of our schools. We have a challenging curriculum and up-to-date textbooks in all of our schools. We have many students on the honor roll, but we also have students who are in need of remediation. It is up to us to work cooperatively with all parents to help their children be all that they can be.