Wow!
Every now and then, you see something that really makes you smile.
In today's edition of Newsday, on page A25, you will find the Nassau and Suffolk County results of the State Education Department's survey of high school seniors in the Class of 2010. I am only going to reproduce the results for the eight school districts in the Town of Huntington, but you will find that Elwood's results in comparison to all districts in both counties are just as impressive.
Anticipating that my AOL formatting may not transfer well for those of you using Optonline or some other ISP's, I will describe the five columns of data, after the name of each district, as follows:
A % of seniors graduating from high school
B % earning Regents diploma with Advanced Designation
C % achieving 80 or better on Regents Math exam, and 75 or better on Regents English exam
D % going on to two year colleges
E % going on to four-year colleges
Now for the Town of Huntington school district results. In an effort to make the over-all results even easier to appreciate, I have color-coded the positions (highest is best for A, B, C, and E, and lowest is best for D) as follows:
First Place, in Red; Second Place in Blue; Third Place in Green.
District___________A____B___C___ D___E
Cold Spring Harbor___98___77__ 82___2___95
Commack _________97___79___72___21__77
Elwood___________98___74___80___14__82
Half Hollow Hills____95___70___71____15__81
Harborfields _______98___72___77____19__77
Huntington________77____41___46___29__57
Northport/E Npt____93____56___65___24__68
South Huntington___ 90____43___51___31__59
With regard to these results, I would make the following observations:
1. Cold Spring Harbor is, by far, the most wealthy district in terms of household income, and also has one of the lowest property tax rates due to the very high value of individual home properties. They regularly have one of the highest average costs, per student, of educating the children in their district. Parents in that district, in general, can afford the finest tutors for their children -- if they should desire them -- and they can also afford private college tuition, at more prestigious, as well as average, as well as any other category of four year colleges. I would expect them to do as well as they obviously have done.
2. Elwood is now, and has always been, a district of average wealth -- pockets of affluence and pockets of great need and most in the middle -- in which most of the children do not benefit from the kind of family financial ability as do most of those in Cold Spring Harbor. Elwood does not have the same kind of average property values, nor do we have much in the way of commercial property values (as does Half Hollow Hills, or Northport, or even Huntington or South Huntington, which all have either large retail sectors or commercial or industrial sectors); accordingly, Elwood has had to make do, to the best of our creative abilities, with less.
But look at those results!
For many years, Elwood was a good district, a fine district, but it became myopically complacent and, as other districts advanced, we began to coast along. The vision, such as it was, became what I have called a "good enough" approach, with a resistance to change by some teaching staff, and even some Elwood-centric administrators.
Yet a regeneration was begun in this district in 2005, under a new Superintendent, Bill Swart, who had significant experience in many other districts on and off Long Island, and this regeneration reached its peak, two years ago, when Peter Scordo was brought in, by our prudent and prescient Board of Education, as our current Superintendent. Peter Scordo has been willing, and able, to go several steps further than Bill Swart, who seemed to occasionally cave in to staff resistance.
This SED summary is not the be-all and end-all justification for everything that we do, but it is a very powerful positive indicator, and we should express our gratitude to Peter Scordo, and Assistant Superintendent Maryann Llewellyn, and Glenn Principal Vincent Mulieri, and his teachers and other staff, and to the young men and women of Glenn who have accepted the challenge to do better, and indeed did.
Congratulations!
Every now and then, you see something that really makes you smile.
In today's edition of Newsday, on page A25, you will find the Nassau and Suffolk County results of the State Education Department's survey of high school seniors in the Class of 2010. I am only going to reproduce the results for the eight school districts in the Town of Huntington, but you will find that Elwood's results in comparison to all districts in both counties are just as impressive.
Anticipating that my AOL formatting may not transfer well for those of you using Optonline or some other ISP's, I will describe the five columns of data, after the name of each district, as follows:
A % of seniors graduating from high school
B % earning Regents diploma with Advanced Designation
C % achieving 80 or better on Regents Math exam, and 75 or better on Regents English exam
D % going on to two year colleges
E % going on to four-year colleges
Now for the Town of Huntington school district results. In an effort to make the over-all results even easier to appreciate, I have color-coded the positions (highest is best for A, B, C, and E, and lowest is best for D) as follows:
First Place, in Red; Second Place in Blue; Third Place in Green.
District___________A____B___C___ D___E
Cold Spring Harbor___98___77__ 82___2___95
Commack _________97___79___72___21__77
Elwood___________98___74___80___14__82
Half Hollow Hills____95___70___71____15__81
Harborfields _______98___72___77____19__77
Huntington________77____41___46___29__57
Northport/E Npt____93____56___65___24__68
South Huntington___ 90____43___51___31__59
With regard to these results, I would make the following observations:
1. Cold Spring Harbor is, by far, the most wealthy district in terms of household income, and also has one of the lowest property tax rates due to the very high value of individual home properties. They regularly have one of the highest average costs, per student, of educating the children in their district. Parents in that district, in general, can afford the finest tutors for their children -- if they should desire them -- and they can also afford private college tuition, at more prestigious, as well as average, as well as any other category of four year colleges. I would expect them to do as well as they obviously have done.
2. Elwood is now, and has always been, a district of average wealth -- pockets of affluence and pockets of great need and most in the middle -- in which most of the children do not benefit from the kind of family financial ability as do most of those in Cold Spring Harbor. Elwood does not have the same kind of average property values, nor do we have much in the way of commercial property values (as does Half Hollow Hills, or Northport, or even Huntington or South Huntington, which all have either large retail sectors or commercial or industrial sectors); accordingly, Elwood has had to make do, to the best of our creative abilities, with less.
But look at those results!
For many years, Elwood was a good district, a fine district, but it became myopically complacent and, as other districts advanced, we began to coast along. The vision, such as it was, became what I have called a "good enough" approach, with a resistance to change by some teaching staff, and even some Elwood-centric administrators.
Yet a regeneration was begun in this district in 2005, under a new Superintendent, Bill Swart, who had significant experience in many other districts on and off Long Island, and this regeneration reached its peak, two years ago, when Peter Scordo was brought in, by our prudent and prescient Board of Education, as our current Superintendent. Peter Scordo has been willing, and able, to go several steps further than Bill Swart, who seemed to occasionally cave in to staff resistance.
This SED summary is not the be-all and end-all justification for everything that we do, but it is a very powerful positive indicator, and we should express our gratitude to Peter Scordo, and Assistant Superintendent Maryann Llewellyn, and Glenn Principal Vincent Mulieri, and his teachers and other staff, and to the young men and women of Glenn who have accepted the challenge to do better, and indeed did.
Congratulations!
