New Report Card Shows Improvement, But Hoboken School District Has 'Long Way To Go' Says Superintendent

SAT scores at Hoboken's public schools — while "a long way to go," according to Superintendent Dr. Mark Toback — have seen an uptick in recent years.

Still, the test results are far below state average and the report card reflects that Hoboken lags in comparison to its peer districts.

The total average SAT scores at Hoboken High, in the 2011-2012 school year, was 1159. The state's target is an average of 1550.

"We're very aware of what the SAT scores are," said Toback. He added that the elementary school students will get new text books for the first time in a decade. Similar improvements, he said, should lead to higher future test scores

The SAT scores were part of the report cards that were released earlier this week.

Released Wednesday, the reports are a new version of the long-running School Reports Cards that have measured school performance on a variety of metrics since the 1990s.

The new reports use many of the same sources of data like student achievement, graduation and dropout rates, demographics and class sizes, but they also match each school up with 30 peer schools from across the state. Schools are matched based on demographics, percentage of low-income students, percentage of special needs students and percentage of limited English-speaking students.

In math, Hoboken High students got an average of 396 in math, 379 in reading and 382 in writing.

At the High School, said Toback, the amount of students proficient in math went from 34 percent to about 50 percent. While not at the state average, Toback said the roughly 15 percent jump was "an enormous increase."

In the future, to help the High School students get to the 1550 level, Toback said there will be a "1550 club" at the school, "so it's in the mind of every student."

For more information on the report cards, check out NJ Spotlight's interactive map.

Zak Koeske added reporting.