PATERSON – The number of students in Paterson Public Schools deemed
“college-ready” fell from 26 in 2013 to 19 this year, according to the
benchmark set by the organization that runs the SAT tests.
Paterson school board headquarters
A report released by the school district last week showed 19 of the 594
Paterson students who took the SATs this year had scores that met the
“college-ready” criteria established by the College Board, which
conducts the standardized tests.
The 19 students represented just under 3.2 percent of the district
students who took the test, which is used by many universities as part
of their admissions evaluation. Last year, 4.3 percent of Paterson
students taking the SATs were deemed college ready.
“That’s a problem,” veteran Paterson school board member Jonathan
Hodges said of the college-readiness numbers. “I’m asking for more
information so we can focus on the significant issues that need to be
addressed. I don’t think we’ve done the work we need to get to the
bottom of the problem.”
District spokeswoman Terry Corallo said she saw the SAT numbers as
“flat not down.” She said the difference in the total number of students
who reached college-ready score was seven, “not much different from
past years.”
“More importantly, this chart was referring to SAT’s being used as a
college-readiness benchmark,” Corallo added. “But as we have discussed,
there are many factors that play a part in college readiness.”
Corallo said the district was trying to better prepare its students
with a variety of programs, like those that focus on “school culture”
and healthy living.
“But perhaps the most important factor is for students to know that
there are adults within the school who care and are invested in their
success – from teachers to coaches to guidance counselors,” Corallo
said. “As you know, we have invested heavily in building capacity of our
staff, including school leaders, and now our guidance department is
being restructured with a focus on preparing students for college and
career – starting in elementary grades.”
The district’s mean SAT scores in 2014 stayed the same as in the
previous year. They increased by three points to 368 in reading and by
three points in math to 392, but fell by six points in writing to 360.
The state averages are 501 in reading, 523 in math and 502 in writing, according to the district’s report.
To be deemed college ready by the College Board, students must get a
combined score of 1,550 on the SATs. Paterson’s combined mean score was
1,120.
“We certainly want our students to be college-ready,” said Rosie Grant,
director of the Paterson Education Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group,
“but I’m not too alarmed because these numbers are based on the SATs.”
Grant pointed out that the College Board tests have come under
criticism for allegedly asking questions that contain cultural-biases
that hurt the scores of minority and female students.
School board member Corey Teague said he saw the college-ready numbers
as evidence that district officials’ upbeat pronouncements about
improved student achievement are suspect.
“That’s a sign that they’re hiding something,” Teague said. “They like to brag that the scores are up when they’re not.”
Peter Tirri, the president of the city’s teachers’ union, said he was
disappointed in the SAT scores. He wondered if there were any
correlation between the district’s low college readiness numbers and its
use of alternative programs designed to help students graduate even if
they failed the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
In particular, Tirri mentioned the district’s “credit recovery
program,” a program that students to make up credits for classes they
failed without retaking the classes. “I know it helps them graduate, but
I’m not sure if makes them college-ready,” Tirri said.
Corallo said the district soon would begin SAT preparation classes for its studets.
“Finally, I would like to once again point out that SAT scores are just
one gauge of ‘college-readiness,’ she said in an email. “In fact,
Montclair State University has recently announced that they will no
longer use SAT or ACT scores as a factor for admittance into this
school. It seems they do not feel SAT’s are a sufficient gauge for
determining success or readiness. It will be interesting to see if
other colleges/universities follow suit.”
The industries developed in Paterson were powered by the 77-foot high
Great Falls, and a system of water raceways that harnessed the power of
the falls, providing the power for the mills in the area until 1914 and
fostering the growth of the city around the mills.[29]
The district originally included dozens of mill buildings and other
manufacturing structures associated with the textile industry and later,
the firearms, silk, and railroad locomotive
manufacturing industries. In the latter half of the 19th century, silk
production became the dominant industry and formed the basis of
Paterson's most prosperous period, earning it the nickname "Silk City."[30] In 1835, Samuel Colt began producing firearms in Paterson, although within a few years he moved his business to Hartford, Connecticut. Later in the 19th century, Paterson was the site of early experiments with submarines by Irish-American inventor John Philip Holland. Two of Holland's early models — one found at the bottom of the Passaic River — are on display in the Paterson Museum, housed in the former Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works near the Passaic Falls.
The Great Falls Historic District is the most famous
neighborhood in Paterson, because of the landmark Great Falls of the
Passaic River. The city has attempted to revitalize the area in recent
years, including the installation of period lamp posts and the
conversion of old industrial buildings into apartments and retail
venues. Many artists live in this section of Paterson. A major
redevelopment project is planned for this district in the coming years.
The Paterson Museum of industrial history at Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works is situated in the Historic District. Downtown Paterson
is the main commercial district of the city and was once a shopping
destination for many who lived in northern New Jersey. After a
devastating fire in 1902, the city rebuilt the downtown with massive Beaux-Arts-style buildings, many of which remain to this day.
Ethnic groups
Since its early beginnings, Paterson has been a melting pot. Irish, Germans, Dutch, and Jews settled in the City in the 19th century. Italian and Eastern European immigrants soon followed. As early as 1890, many Syrian and Lebanese immigrants also arrived in Paterson.
Paterson's black community consists of African Americans of Southern heritage and more recent Caribbean and African immigrants. Paterson's black population increased during the Great Migration
of the 20th century, but there have been Patersonians of African
descent since before the Civil War. However, Paterson's black population
declined between the years 2000 and 2010,[51] consistent with the overall return migration of African Americans from Northern New Jersey back to the Southern United States.[52] A house once existing at Bridge Street and Broadway was a station on the Underground Railroad. It was operated from 1855 to 1864 by abolitionists William Van Rensalier, a black engineer, and Josiah Huntoon, a white industrialist.[53] There is now a memorial at the site.[54]
Many second- and third-generation Puerto Ricans
have been calling Paterson home since the 1950s, including an estimated
10,000 who would participate in the 2014 mayoral election, which was
won by Jose "Joey" Torres, a Puerto Rican American who was one of three Hispanic candidates vying for the seat.[55] Today's Hispanic immigrants to Paterson are primarily Dominican, Peruvian, Colombian, Mexican, and Central American, with a resurgence of Puerto Rican migration as well.
As of March 23, 2011, there were a total of 68,324 registered voters
in Paterson, of which 27,926 (40.9% vs. 31.0% countywide) were
registered as Democrats, 3,100 (4.5% vs. 18.7%) were registered as Republicans and 37,285 (54.6% vs. 50.3%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 13 voters registered to other parties.[120]
Among the city's 2010 Census population, 46.7% (vs. 53.2% in Passaic
County) were registered to vote, including 64.8% of those ages 18 and
over (vs. 70.8% countywide).[120][121]
In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 38,085 votes here (86.7% vs. 58.8% countywide), ahead of Republican John McCain with 4,098 votes (9.3% vs. 37.7%)
In 2011, all of Paterson's high schools were changed to theme schools,
as part of a goal to give students a better choice in areas they wanted
to pursue
Paterson Catholic High School, formerly the city's only remaining Catholic high school, was closed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson
at the end of the 2009-10 academic year, which cited declining
enrollment and financial difficulties as reasons for the closure.
A few days ago one of our topics raised the statistic that Newark NJ was in the top four cities in murders per capita in the USA. I happen to be born in Newark and lived withing twenty minutes of that city, and within 15 minutes of Paterson, for the first 18 years of my life. Since college I have lived within one hour of both of these cities along with other urban nightmares including Camden, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, New Brunswick, Jersey City, and of course near by Trenton.
Being born in 1950 I witnessed the pinnacle and penumbra of these urban areas of NJ. NJ is quite representative of the many Northeastern States which have experienced massive reversal of their inner cities from prosperity to what we are left with today. Over the next few days I will flesh out my thoughts and feelings about the underlying causes of the decline of civilization in areas that were once (and could be again) garden locations on the globe.
My story will begin with Newark, Paterson, and white flight.
"In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do." 19 out of 594. Truly a sad commentary of our "Great Society."
Undoubtedly, you will regale us with a story of increasing government involvement, rigid regulations, food stamps and for good measure, I would imagine you find a way to put Benghazi in there as well.
You were born at a time when we still manufactured things, husbands could earn enough money to let their wives stay home and our country was standing tall after WW II. Black people still knew their place and didn't dare press their luck anywhere but in the north of the country. For conservatives, there probably could not have been a more idillic time.
Obviously my efforts would be a waste of time. The world according to Max trumps any sort of varying perspective, any form of open analysis, any projection of remedy for the people held within these social getto's.
Why don't you tell us Max what your ideas are for the 19 out of 594 problem. Write another two or three dozen paragraphs that we can pass along to those who are as Throeau described "leading lives of quiet desperation."
George F. Will: The slow decline of America since LBJ launched the Great Society George F. Will By George F. Will Opinion writer May 16
Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.
Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”
In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.
Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.
He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”
When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.
Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:
“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”
But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”
Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:
For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.
LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”
will@work 5/19/2014 10:43 PM EDT LBJ, with a big heart and good intentions, did a terrible thing to this country: he made going permanently on the dole an acceptable way to live. Now we routinely vote for unfunded programs we think will benefit us; we vote ourselves "access" to other people's money and labor; we expect every year that government will add to the list of things it will give us for free or protect us from. We may not be able to recover.
buslaw 5/19/2014 1:49 AM EDT Agree. Government started to grow with one bureaucracy after another, with each bureaucracy created to regulate and to dole out entitlements - from food stamps to farm subsidies. Government began to tell people what is good for them instead of allowing people to decide on their well-being. I wonder if Kennedy would have picked Johnson as his VP if he knew Johnson would have steered out country to reliance on government instead of self reliance. JFK was about empowering the individual and self reliance. JFK was about asking people to countribute to our country rather than taking from our country. Sadly, one sniper's bullet sent our country into a u-turn.
goengo 5/19/2014 11:29 AM EDT I will agree with one part of your comment: " greed and avarice have triumphed. " The rest is nonsense, but it is true that greed and avarice have triumphed. It's everyone out to see how much the government can give them. Instead of hard work, some value hand-outs instead. We were once a country of independent, self-sufficient people, but we have become a nation dependent on government and unwilling to rely on the sweat of our brows. A once great nation is in decline, in part because of the "great society."
Paterson is a city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States,[17][18] in the New York City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199,[7][8][9] rendering it New Jersey's third-most-populous city[19] reflecting a decline of 3,023 (-2.0%) from the 149,222 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 8,331 (+5.9%) from the 140,891 counted in the 1990 Census.[20] The Census Bureau estimated a 2012 population of 145,219, a decrease of 980 (-0.7%) since 2010.[21] Detailed analysis of 2011 U.S. Census Bureau data reveals that Paterson continues to carry the second-highest density of any U.S. city with over 100,000 people, behind only New York City.[22] Paterson is known as the "Silk City" for its dominant role in silk production during the latter half of the 19th century[1] but has since evolved into a major destination for Hispanic emigrants as well as for immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world. It has the second-largest Muslim population in the United States.[23]
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton helped found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures (SUM), which helped encourage the harnessing of energy from the Great Falls of the Passaic River, to secure economic independence from British manufacturers. Paterson, which was founded by the society, became the cradle of the industrial revolution in America.[24] Paterson was named for William Paterson, statesman, signer of the Constitution and Governor of New Jersey who signed the 1792 charter that established the Town of Paterson.[25]
A few days ago one of our topics raised the statistic that Newark NJ was in the top four cities in murders per capita in the USA. I happen to be born in Newark and lived withing twenty minutes of that city, and within 15 minutes of Paterson, for the first 18 years of my life. Since college I have lived within one hour of both of these cities along with other urban nightmares including Camden, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, New Brunswick, Jersey City, and of course near by Trenton.
ReplyDeleteBeing born in 1950 I witnessed the pinnacle and penumbra of these urban areas of NJ. NJ is quite representative of the many Northeastern States which have experienced massive reversal of their inner cities from prosperity to what we are left with today. Over the next few days I will flesh out my thoughts and feelings about the underlying causes of the decline of civilization in areas that were once (and could be again) garden locations on the globe.
My story will begin with Newark, Paterson, and white flight.
"In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do." 19 out of 594. Truly a sad commentary of our "Great Society."
Undoubtedly, you will regale us with a story of increasing government involvement, rigid regulations, food stamps and for good measure, I would imagine you find a way to put Benghazi in there as well.
DeleteYou were born at a time when we still manufactured things, husbands could earn enough money to let their wives stay home and our country was standing tall after WW II. Black people still knew their place and didn't dare press their luck anywhere but in the north of the country. For conservatives, there probably could not have been a more idillic time.
Obviously my efforts would be a waste of time. The world according to Max trumps any sort of varying perspective, any form of open analysis, any projection of remedy for the people held within these social getto's.
DeleteWhy don't you tell us Max what your ideas are for the 19 out of 594 problem. Write another two or three dozen paragraphs that we can pass along to those who are as Throeau described "leading lives of quiet desperation."
Go ahead Max. Solve all of our problems.
Typical Max, another hit and run pile of poop. No remedies, just pure faith in existing unionized failing policies.
DeletePretty typical. Nothing to say of value.
George F. Will: The slow decline of America since LBJ launched the Great Society
ReplyDeleteGeorge F. Will
By George F. Will Opinion writer May 16
Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.
Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”
In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.
Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.
He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”
When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.
ReplyDeleteBetween 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:
“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”
But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”
Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:
For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.
LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”
will@work
Delete5/19/2014 10:43 PM EDT
LBJ, with a big heart and good intentions, did a terrible thing to this country: he made going permanently on the dole an acceptable way to live. Now we routinely vote for unfunded programs we think will benefit us; we vote ourselves "access" to other people's money and labor; we expect every year that government will add to the list of things it will give us for free or protect us from. We may not be able to recover.
buslaw
5/19/2014 1:49 AM EDT
Agree. Government started to grow with one bureaucracy after another, with each bureaucracy created to regulate and to dole out entitlements - from food stamps to farm subsidies. Government began to tell people what is good for them instead of allowing people to decide on their well-being. I wonder if Kennedy would have picked Johnson as his VP if he knew Johnson would have steered out country to reliance on government instead of self reliance. JFK was about empowering the individual and self reliance. JFK was about asking people to countribute to our country rather than taking from our country. Sadly, one sniper's bullet sent our country into a u-turn.
goengo
5/19/2014 11:29 AM EDT
I will agree with one part of your comment: " greed and avarice have triumphed. " The rest is nonsense, but it is true that greed and avarice have triumphed. It's everyone out to see how much the government can give them. Instead of hard work, some value hand-outs instead. We were once a country of independent, self-sufficient people, but we have become a nation dependent on government and unwilling to rely on the sweat of our brows. A once great nation is in decline, in part because of the "great society."