Seven-District Dashboard for Academic Proficiency Shows Mixed Results by Grade Band
Elementary schools continue to rank highly while middle schools and high schools struggle.
-Written by an Educator in our District
Earlier this month, NJ.com published a data table for school districts grouped by county in all 21 counties. The article can be found here.
This below data lists and summarizes data from NJ21’s traditional seven-district data dashboard: Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Summit, Chatham, Madison, Millburn, and Westfield. Our prior article with only the Union County schools listed those four Union County districts plus Mountainside, Springfield, and Cranford.
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.
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 (grade span) | District | Summative score | Summative ranking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Glenwood School (K-4) | Millburn | 98.25 (A) | 100.00 (A) |
| 2 | Salt Brook School (K-6) | New Providence | 91.97 (A-) | 98.92 (A+) |
| 3 | South Mountain School (K-4) | Millburn | 91.65 (A-) | 98.86 (A) |
| 4 | Franklin School (1-5) | Westfield | 91.23 (A-) | 98.74 (A+) |
| 5 | Allen W. Roberts School (K-6) | New Providence | 90.68 (A-) | 98.44 (A+) |
| 6 | Wyoming School (K-4) | Millburn | 89.75 (B+) | 97.84 (A+) |
| 7 | Washington School (1-5) | Westfield | 89.68 (B+) | 97.71 (A+) |
| 8 | Wilson School (1-5) | Westfield | 89.00 (B+) | 97.23 (A+) |
| 9 | Hartshorn School (K-4) | Millburn | 88.81 (B+) | 97.17 (A+) |
| 10 | Brayton School (1-5) | Summit | 87.64 (B+) | 96.03 (A) |
| 11 | Deerfield School (K-4) | Millburn | 87.04 (B+) | 95.49 (A) |
| 12 | Franklin School (1-5) | Summit | 86.91 (B) | 95.19 (A) |
| 13 | Lincoln-Hubbard School (1-5) | Summit | 85.22 (B) | 93.99 (A) |
| 14 | Hughes (3-5) | Berkeley Heights | 85.14 (B) | 93.93 (A) |
| 15 | Tamaques School (1-5) | Westfield | 82.44 (B-) | 91.94 (A-) |
| 16 | McKinley School (1-5) | Westfield | 81.08 (B-) | 90.44 (A-) |
| 17 | Kings Road School (K-5) | Madison | 81.01 (B-) | 90.32 (A-) |
| 18 | Jefferson School (1-5) | Summit | 80.68 (B-) | 89.90 (B+) |
| 19 | Chatham High School (9-12) | Chatham | 80.21 (B-) | 86.70 (B) |
| 20 | Central Avenue School (K-5) | Madison | 79.55 (C+) | 88.88 (B+) |
| 21 | Millburn High School (9-12) | Millburn | 78.63 (C+) | 85.32 (B) |
| 22 | Summit High School (9-12) | Summit | 74.40 (C) | 80.89 (B-) |
| 23 | Millburn Middle School (6-8) | Millburn | 73.46 (C) | 82.44 (B-) |
| 24 | New Providence High School (9-12) | New Providence | 73.37 (C) | 78.95 (C+) |
| 25 | Washington School (5) | Millburn | 72.65 (C-) | 81.90 (B-) |
| 26 | Torey J. Sabatini School (K-5) | Madison | 70.88 (C-) | 79.92 (C+) |
| 27 | Mountain Park (3-5) | Berkeley Heights | 70.78 (C-) | 79.68 (C+) |
| 28 | Westfield High School (9-12) | Westfield | 69.84 (D+) | 76.18 (C) |
| 29 | Washington School (1-5) | Summit | 69.49 (D+) | 77.57 (C) |
| 30 | Jefferson School (1-5) | Westfield | 69.07 (D+) | 77.21 (C) |
| 31 | Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School (6-8) | Summit | 68.07 (D+) | 75.71 (C) |
| 32 | Columbia Middle School (6-8) | Berkeley Heights | 67.51 (D+) | 74.74 (C) |
| 33 | Lafayette Avenue School (4-5) | Chatham | 66.44 (D) | 73.48 (C) |
| 34 | Governor Livingston High School (9-12) | Berkeley Heights | 65.62 (D) | 70.91 (C-) |
| 35 | Edison Intermediate School (6-8) | Westfield | 63.55 (D) | 69.57 (D+) |
| 36 | Madison High School (9-12) | Madison | 61.34 (D-) | 64.82 (D) |
| 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) |
| 39 | Madison Junior School (6-8) | Madison | 50.55 (F) | 50.69 (F) |
| 40 | Chatham Middle School (6-8) | Chatham | 48.42 (F) | 47.44 (F) |
Common themes presented from this data:
- Four middle schools (Chatham, Madison, New Providence, and Roosevelt Intermediate School in Westfield) ranked at the very bottom.
- In fact, the bottom 10 (31st place through 40th place) consist of all secondary schools (middle and high schools) with the exception of Lafayette School, an upper elementary school, in Chatham.
- Meanwhile, elementary schools consume 19 of 20 spots in the Top 20 (the upper half of the data), with the exception of Chatham High School (19th place).
- Glenwood School in Millburn, a K-4 school, rankes #1 of all schools in all seven seven districts, surpassing the top elementary schools in New Providence (two elementary schools in New Providence and three elementary schools in Westfield were previously at the top in the Union County article).
- In the Top 10, Millburn takes four spots, New Providence takes two spots (both of New Providence’s elementary schools ranked in the top 5), Westfield takes three spots, and Summit takes one spot. All those schools are elementary schools.
- This continues to reinforce the theme from the prior article that while elementary schools are mostly performing well, the middle schools and high schools in the same district do not rank nearly as high as more support for faculty and students, particularly with smaller class sizes, smaller group instruction, and curriculum alignment to the New Jersey State Learning Standards (NJSLS), may be warranted to help solve this problem.
- Surprisingly, Madison and Chatham schools ranked sixth place and seventh place, respectively.
| District | Schools ranked | Summative score (includes comparison from 2022-23) |
Summative ranking (includes comparison from 2022-23) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Millburn | 8 | 85.03 (B) +5 | 92.38 (A-) +4 |
| Summit | 7 | 78.92 (C+) -1 | 87.04 (B+) -1 |
| New Providence | 4 | 77.26 (C+) -1 | 82.71 (B-) -2 |
| Westfield | 9 | 76.55 (C) -1 | 83.72 (B) -1 |
| Berkeley Heights | 4 | 72.27 (C-) -6 | 79.82 (C+) -6 |
| Madison | 5 | 68.67 (D+) -5 | 74.93 (C) -4 |
| Chatham | 3 | 65.02 (D) -19 | 69.21 (D+) -12 |
Sources:
For Top Level Trending on Each District See
2025 7-District Dashboard – NJ School Performance Report Comparisons
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