N-W improves in Business First ranking

by Larry Austin
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, June 28, 2007

An upward trend in the Niagara-Wheatfield School District’s school ranking reflects the district’s “culture of continuous improvement,” the school superintendent said last week.

According to Buffalo Business First’s Guide to Western New York Schools 2007, the overall district ranked 28th out of 97 districts in the Niagara Frontier, an improvement of nine places over last year’s ranking. School Superintendent Dr. Judith Howard said the analysis reflects what the district has accomplished with its school improvement teams.

However, Howard asserted that the district in general has never focused on the rankings themselves.

“It’s not about Business First,” Howard said. “But it’s about continuing to focus on student achievement and getting better.”

Also in the Business First rankings:

•Niagara-Wheatfield High School ranked 39th out of 129 high schools.

•Edward Town Middle School ranked 96th out of 207 middle schools.

•Among 291 elementary schools, Colonial Village Elementary ranked 164th, Errick Road Elementary ranked 22nd, West Street Elementary ranked 86th, and Tuscarora Elementary ranked 247th.

Business First gave a Subject Award, in which it singles out a school for excellence in an academic area, to Errick Road Elementary School for mathematics.

The statistics used by Business First in compiling its rankings come from the New York State Education Department.

Evaluating schools based on rankings is a shallow assessment, Howard said. Howard said the district has not done anything differently from the time when it was ranked 76th in 1998. It’s commitment to improvement is a constant, she said, regardless of the rankings.

“How we do our work and what we do and what we focus on has not changed,” Howard said. “If tomorrow we were No. 1, it wouldn’t mean, OK, we’ve arrived.”

“So for me, the rankings are somewhat immaterial. It’s always pleasant to be going up. The trend data is nice that it’s going up.”

Howard said the improved rankings provide outside recognition “for the people within the school that are working very hard to improve.”

“Inside, the principals and myself, we have seen the changes, so we knew that we were improving,” Howard said, “but sometimes people need the outside, extrinsic, recognition, so it serves its purpose there, I guess.”