From Top-Performing Elementaries to Troubled Middles: Union County School Proficiency Scores Ranked
New Providence and Westfield dominate early grades, while middle schools lag across nearly every district
-Written by an Educator in the District
Nj.com has published a data table for Union County schools reflecting how well schools performed primarily in academics. Data for any of New Jersey’s other counties can also be found on nj.com.
According to the Union County article, the top performing school in the county is Union County Magnet High School, followed by three career-tracked vocational-technical schools, then elementary schools in New Providence and Westfield.
The scores below are ranked on a scale from 0 (least proficient) to 100 (most proficient). According to the source, the summative score reflects how well a school performed on test scores, academic growth, and other factors including chronic absenteeism. The summative rating represents percentile.
As this data set includes Union County schools only, districts such as Chatham, Madison, and Millburn, that are typically in NJ21st’s seven-district dashboard, are not included here. Instead, they have been replaced by Cranford, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, and Mountainside, in addition to the usual Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Summit, and Westfield. School performance reports for the original seven-district dashboard were discussed in this April article.
The rankings below only count students in Grade 3 and above, as standardized testing does not affect students in Grade 2 and below.
| Rank | School (Grades) | District | Summative Score | Summative Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Salt Brook School (K-6) | New Providence | 91.97 (A-) | 98.92 (A+) |
| 2 | Franklin School (1-5) | Westfield | 91.23 (A-) | 98.74 (A+) |
| 3 | Allen W. Roberts School (K-6) | New Providence | 90.68 (A-) | 98.44 (A+) |
| 4 | Washington School (1-5) | Westfield | 89.68 (B+) | 97.71 (A+) |
| 5 | Wilson School (1-5) | Westfield | 89.00 (B+) | 97.23 (A+) |
| 6 | Coles School (K-4) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 87.85 (B+) | 96.15 (A) |
| 7 | Brayton School (1-5) | Summit | 87.64 (B+) | 96.03 (A) |
| 8 | Franklin School (1-5) | Summit | 86.91 (B) | 95.19 (A) |
| 9 | Lincoln-Hubbard School (1-5) | Summit | 85.22 (B) | 93.99 (A) |
| 10 | Hughes (3-5) | Berkeley Heights | 85.14 (B) | 93.93 (A) |
| 11 | McGinn School (K-4) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 83.07 (B) | 92.48 (A-) |
| 12 | Tamaques School (1-5) | Westfield | 82.44 (B-) | 91.94 (A-) |
| 13 | School One (K-4) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 81.64 (B-) | 91.04 (A-) |
| 14 | Deerfield School (3-8) | Mountainside | 81.37 (B-) | 90.86 (A-) |
| 15 | Brookside Place School (K-5) | Cranford | 81.13 (B-) | 90.56 (A-) |
| 16 | McKinley School (1-5) | Westfield | 81.08 (B-) | 90.44 (A-) |
| 17 | Jefferson School (1-5) | Summit | 80.68 (B-) | 89.90 (B+) |
| 18 | Evergreen School (K-4) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 76.51 (C) | 85.75 (B) |
| 19 | Summit High School (9-12) | Summit | 74.40 (C) | 80.89 (B-) |
| 20 | New Providence High School (9-12) | New Providence | 73.37 (C) | 78.95 (C+) |
| 21 | Orange Avenue School (3-8) | Cranford | 72.03 (C-) | 81.48 (B-) |
| 22 | Livingston Avenue School (3-5) | Cranford | 71.31 (C-) | 80.64 (B-) |
| 23 | Mountain Park (3-5) | Berkeley Heights | 70.78 (C-) | 79.68 (C+) |
| 24 | Westfield High School (9-12) | Westfield | 69.84 (D+) | 76.18 (C) |
| 25 | Washington School (1-5) | Summit | 69.49 (D+) | 77.57 (C) |
| 26 | Jefferson School (1-5) | Westfield | 69.07 (D+) | 77.21 (C) |
| 27 | Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School (6-8) | Summit | 68.07 (D+) | 75.71 (C) |
| 28 | Columbia Middle School (6-8) | Berkeley Heights | 67.51 (D+) | 74.74 (C) |
| 29 | Governor Livingston High School (9-12) | Berkeley Heights | 65.62 (D) | 70.91 (C-) |
| 30 | Edison Intermediate School (6-8) | Westfield | 63.55 (D) | 69.57 (D+) |
| 31 | Brunner School (K-4) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 61.98 (D-) | 67.35 (D+) |
| 32 | Cranford High School (9-12) | Cranford | 59.87 (F) | 62.60 (D-) |
| 33 | Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School (9-12) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 59.19 (F) | 61.50 (D-) |
| 34 | Terrill Middle School (5-8) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 59.05 (F) | 63.68 (D) |
| 35 | Nettingham Middle School (5-8) | Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 54.04 (F) | 56.70 (F) |
| 36 | Hillside Avenue School (K-8) | Cranford | 53.67 (F) | 55.98 (F) |
| 37 | Roosevelt Intermediate School (6-8) | Westfield | 53.02 (F) | 54.48 (F) |
| 38 | New Providence Middle School (7-8) | New Providence | 53.00 (F) | 54.52 (F) |
Common themes presented from this data:
- All four Berkeley Heights schools fall in the middle of the pack (not top-ranked nor bottom-ranked).
- Both elementary schools in New Providence, as well as New Providence High School (second to Summit in the high school rankings), ranked highly. However, abysmal proficiency numbers from New Providence Middle School severely weigh down New Providence School District as a whole.
- In fact, most middle schools here rank poorly, with the middle schools in Scotch Plains-Fanwood and New Providence at the bottom of the pack, as well as one of two buildings containing middle school students in Cranford and Westfield. Meanwhile, each of these towns’ high schools and elementary schools, especially the latter, perform much higher.
- As mentioned in the subtitle, both elementary schools in New Providence (1st and 3rd place) and three elementary schools (2nd, 4th, and 5th place) in Westfield consume the Top 5. One elementary school in Scotch Plains-Fanwood (6th place), three elementary schools in Summit (7th, 8th, and 9th) place, and one elementary school in Berkeley Heights (10th) round out the Top 10.
- What is most concerning across the board is that it takes until 14th place down the list to get to a school that houses middle school students (Deerfield School in Mountainside), 19th place for a high school (Summit), and 27th place for a standalone middle school (Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School). In other words, more students in these districts are performing at the expected proficiency level at the elementary level but then students tend to fall off their expected proficiency level in middle school or high school.
- Having said this, while basic skills supports are typically offered in elementary schools, such as a math interventionist and certified reading specialists, these supports need to be offered or if already offered, reexamined at the middle school level. See prior articles related to school improvement below.
| District | Schools Ranked | Summative Score | Summative Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mountainside | 1 | 81.37 (B-) | 90.86 (A-) |
| Summit | 7 | 78.92 (C+) | 87.04 (B+) |
| New Providence | 4 | 77.26 (C+) | 82.71 (B-) |
| Westfield | 9 | 76.55 (C) | 83.72 (B) |
| Berkeley Heights | 4 | 72.27 (C-) | 79.82 (C+) |
| Scotch Plains-Fanwood | 8 | 70.42 (C-) | 76.84 (C) |
| Cranford | 5 | 67.60 (D) | 74.25 (C) |
Prior articles related to school improvement:
- What We Can Do to Reverse the Berkeley Heights Declines in Math, Science, and ELA Part 1: The Budget
- What We Can Do to Reverse the Berkeley Heights Declines in Math, Science, and ELA Part 2: Evidence-Based Decision Making
- Breaking Down The Recent BOE Mathematics Department Presentation
- A 2025-26 Berkeley Heights School Calendar
- Potential Strategies to Improve Test Scores at Governor Livingston High School
- How to Increase Core-Content Area Instructional Minutes at Columbia Middle School
- Year 1 Recommendations for New Superintendent Dr. Kim Feltre
NJ21st allows for confidentially sourced articles from employees of local government agencies or volunteers of non-profits whose organizations would take retaliatory action against their employees and , in the case of volunteer organizations, officers for exercising their right to express an opinion about local government. We have verified the confidential source for this article and have met with him/her face to face.
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