Recent NJGPA Results Highlight Gaps Between Top-Tier Districts and Those Falling Behind

–Written by an Educator in our District

At the July 24th, 2025 New Providence Board of Education meeting, the district presented their assessment report that included New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment (NJGPA) results from spring 2024. 

High school students sit for the separate English Language Arts (ELA) and math components of the NJGPA in the spring of their junior year (11th grade). Therefore, these scores are representative of each high school’s Class of 2025, taken by juniors in spring 2024. If students do not pass the NJGPA the first two times, there are alternate options including other standardized tests, such as the PSAT/SAT/ACT, or a portfolio process.

Below is the chart presented at the New Providence Board of Education meeting of the percentage of students who passed each the ELA component and the math component per district. Any districts that have scores above 90 percent in either ELA or math are not permitted to be released publicly, according to the state of New Jersey. Therefore, you will see “>90%” on the below data table for those districts.

The below table represents the NJ21st traditional seven district dashboard district in bold, plus Cranford and Livingston, with scores from greatest to least in math and ELA:

Analysis of the above data

Of the nine districts listed, Livingston and Summit were tied for 2nd place, right behind Chatham, Millburn, and New Providence, with those latter three districts tied for 1st place with the data that is publicly available. Chatham, Millburn, and New Providence were the only three districts to achieve above 90% in math, while eight of nine districts achieved above 90% in ELA. Westfield and Madison fall slightly behind Livingston and Summit, with all math scores still achieving an 85%+ passing rate. Meanwhile, Cranford and Berkeley Heights had math passing rates below 80%.

What this data means for Berkeley Heights Public Schools (BHPS)

One notable observation is that BHPS is the outlier of the nine districts not having a passing rate of ELA scores at 90% or above. However, an 88.9% ELA passing score is still very strong. Meanwhile, math is more concerning, with less than three quarters of juniors at Governor Livingston High School (GLHS) meeting their graduation proficiency in the spring of 2024. 

At the time of this data, new STEAM Director Dr. Kelly Curtiss had just started six months prior in October 2023. Therefore, these numbers should be less of a reflection on Dr. Curtiss as she has presented on how to improve math in Berkeley Heights. Let’s see under her leadership if these scores increase once spring 2025 (Class of 2026) NJGPA scores are released at a later time. Moreover, this is rather a continued trend of sub-par rankings in part due to not-so-great math scores, in comparison to neighboring, similar districts, that have gone back to mistakes from a prior BHPS administration in the 2022-23 school year that allowed for the non-direct, less teacher-led instruction Building Thinking Classrooms, which likely led to these lower math scores throughout the years.

Going forward, math at GLHS and BHPS as a whole should provide for more direct instruction, a return to basics, and increased middle school instructional minutes for core subjects to provide a solid math foundation to feed into GLHS (which was brought up in Curriculum Meeting notes, discussed at the June 26th, 2025 Berkeley Heights Board of Education meeting), in addition to allowing a calendar that provides more professional development for teachers that does not pull them away from their classrooms.

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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