NJ Education Report

According to today’s Times of Trenton, the Facility Advisory Board has plans to renovate Trenton Central High School which, according to a member of the advisory board, “is falling apart.”
Much of the plan centers on urgent repairs – removing asbestos, patching roofs, replacing rotting plumbing – and also creating a new vocational wing to provide services for kids who currently go out-of-district to county vocational schools.

According to Trenton’s DOE budget, the district spends $35.7 million on out-of-district placements, which include private special education schools, charters, and Mercer County Special Services and Vocational Schools. The total operating budget for Trenton Public Schools’11,500 kids  is about $250 million.

In other Trenton news, the newly-released School Report Cards now display Trenton Public Schools’ numbers, which were absent until yesterday. While still incomplete (no data on the number of ELL kids, students classified as eligible for special services, internet connectivity, or A.P. participation), the Report Card for Trenton Central High show a slight increase in scores for language arts: in 2009-2010, 59.9% of kids were proficient but in 2010-2011 scores go up to 66.7%.  Math scores on the high school proficiency assessment show a slight drop: from 28.5% proficiency to 25.3% proficiency.

The graduation rate is listed as 54.8%.