Westchester Magazine has published their annual list of Best High Schools in Westchester.
And once again the survey throws a cold bucket of water on the claims by school administrators, board members and real estate agents who seek to convince parents, community members and prospective home buyers that New Rochelle is a high performing school district. It’s not; in fact, it is one of the lowest performing districts in Westchester.
The list ranks 47 high schools across the 39 school districts in Westchester County. Overall, New Rochelle High School ranks in the 3rd or 4th quartile in every student category — at or near the bottom.
The data is pulled from several sources. Median Income data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2009-2013. SAT data comes from The College Board (2012-2013). All other data comes from the NYSED School Report Card (2012-2013).
SAT Scores in New Rochelle are among the lowest in Westchester County. The Total Mean SAT for New Rochelle High School ranks 34th with a score of 1472 (out of 2400). The Mean SAT Critical Reading score ranks 34th at 483, the Mean SAT Math score ranks 34th at 496, the SAT Writing score ranks 32nd at 493.
School officials will never say it aloud but everyone in the City knows that the mean SAT scores for White students is dramatically higher and that the mean score reflects the impact of the North-South divide in New Rochelle (same for graduate rates, attending college, etc.). This can be taken two ways: that White students (and a small number of Asian students) are raising the average for the entire school or Black and Hispanic students are dragging the average down. Even this data is inflated because SAT tests are optional and the vast majority of students who do not take the SAT’s (and do not graduate on time and do not attend college) are minority students which is has a large impact on a school that is majority minority.
The four year graduation rate in New Rochelle ranks 37th at 83% which is among the lowest in Westchester County. They survey does not indicate whether this is the June graduation rate or the preferred choice (because it is always higher) the August graduation rate.
The percentage of New Rochelle High School graduates attending college is 43rd close to the bottom, at 80% and even that number is skewed because while New Rochelle High School ranks 38th in graduates going to 4-year colleges at 53% it ranks 18th in seconding graduates to 2-year colleges at 27%. One number the District has never provided is the number of New Rochelle High School graduates earning a 4-year degree.
Even these low numbers are unreliable because New Rochelle High School has a history of manipulating the data by reducing the number of students considered eligible to graduate, by reducing the putative size of the graduating class (the denominator) the percentage goes up. Similarly, the school has invented various ways to boost grades for classes already completed or give credit for classes already failed to increase the number of “graduates” (the numerator) so the percentage goes up. Readers will recall that when New York State required increasing requirements to graduate which should have caused graduation rates to decline, the rate in New Rochelle inexplicable rose significantly.
Aspirational Performance Measure is an indicator of college and career readiness, a number related to Common Core. It is the percentage of students who earned a Regents diploma with advanced designation. New Rochelle High School ranks 36th in APM at 36.4%.
One area where New Rochelle High School excels is in teacher retention. Teacher Turnover Rate is just 6% which ranks New Rochelle 10th in Westchester. This low turnover can reflect teacher contentment with their jobs at New Rochelle High School or the lack of options for teachers at New Rochelle High School to get elsewhere. There is not enough information to make a determination as to which applies but one possible indicator is the level of graduate school experience of teachers at New Rochelle High School. Teachers at the school ranks 21st with 61% of teachers having earned a Master’s Degree, are working towards their doctorate or have earned their doctorate (“Teachers MA+30 Hours/PhD”).
Poverty, more than race, drives academic performance and about one-third of New Rochelle High School students come from low-income households. The school ranks 16th in the number of Students Who Qualify For Free Lunch at 32%.
One are that might surprise readers is that despite a large hispanic population at New Rochelle High School, just 4% of students are classified as Limited English Proficient Students. The school ranks 21st. Another way to look at this data is that about one-third of the students are hispanic, that almost all of the Limited English Proficient Students are hispanic so 12% of hispanic students are Limited English Proficient Students by high school, after most of the students have had many years being educated in the New Rochelle school system.
There is one category where New Rochelle High School is by far and away the top school in Westchester County. The school is ranked first in the size of its Senior Class with 764 students. That is a staggeringly large number and raises real questions about the wisdom of having such a large hight school. White Plains is ranked 2nd at 561, more than 200 students less. After that, it’s not even close. The next largest high schools are Mamaroneck (378), Ossining (350) and Fox Lane in Bedford (343), all less than half the size of New Rochelle High School.
Following from that, New Rochelle High School also has one of the highest Average Class Sizes in Westchester at 25 students per class (reflects the sophomore class during the 2012-2013 school year). To put that in context, the Top 10 schools ranked on average class size are:
- Yonkers-High
- Yonkers-Gorton
- Yonkers-Roosevelt
- Yonkers-Lincoln
- Yonkers- Palisade Preparatory
- New Rochelle
- Mount Vernon-Mount Vernon High
- Yonkers-Saunders Trades and Technical
- Walter Panas (Cortlandt Manor)
- Yonkers-Riverside
This is not a list any parent wants to see their child’s school on.
The survey ranks New Rochelle High School #42 (11th percentile) on the list for Median Household Income in High School’s ZIP Code at $54,50442. This is misleading because unlike other large municipalities, New Rochelle has just one high school, located in the 10801 zip code and so the Median household income is badly skewed because it does not include all or part of three of the most affluent zip codes in the entire county. The entire 10804 zip code and parts of the 10583 (Scarsdale) and 10538 (Larchmont) zip codes send students to New Rochelle High School.
For many years up until this week, the New Rochelle High School Wikipedia entry contained a number of false claims about the school’s academic performance.
NRHS students are known for ranking highly in SAT test scores for Westchester County.
This statement is false. New Rochelle SAT scores are among the lowest in Westchester County.
96% of graduates attend college or other institutions of higher learning.
This statement is false. 80% of graduates “attend college or other institutions of higher learning” broken down as 53% at 4-year colleges and 27% at 2-year colleges.
New Rochelle has been ranked in the top 2% of high schools in the nation by Newsweek since 2000.
Not only is this false but the New Rochelle Board of Education voted several years ago to cease cooperation with Newsweek in their annual survey because the school had dropped off the list entirely.
NRHS is a two-time Blue Ribbon School, the highest honor that an American school can achieve.
While true, this begs the question we raised the other day, whether there is a statue of limitations on making this sort of claim since New Rochelle High School last won a National Blue Ribbon in 1996.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Cox has been a registered Wikipedian for many years; as such, he has edited the entry for New Rochelle High School to remove inaccurate and non-encyclopedia information]
New Rochelle Pep Squad
There are any number of critics of Talk of the Sound that will be upset with this article. It’s not that the information is not accurate but it goes against the deeply-held belief among some that anything that does not reflect well on the school system in New Rochelle should be kept quiet. These people delude themselves with the idea that the best way to help fix problems in the school system is to pretend they do not exist. The result of this very approach has been a steady erosion in every single data point that measures school performance. By shifting reources to North End schools, the school board and administration have gutted the South End schools. The outcomes in the South End schools have declined faster than any increase in the North End schools with the result that overall performance as measured by these various data points has fallen and continues to fall.
This data is simply a matter of chickens coming home to roost after years of neglect coupled with corruption.