Summary:
The Passaic City School District in New Jersey is home to three middle schools serving grades 6-8. The standout performer in the district is Passaic Gifted and Talented Academy School No. 20, which consistently outperforms the district and state averages on standardized test scores. In contrast, the other two middle schools, Ellen Ochoa School Number 22 and Muhammad Ali School Number 23, struggle to meet state and district averages, with proficiency rates often in the single digits.
Passaic Gifted and Talented Academy School No. 20 is ranked 257 out of 752 New Jersey middle schools, with a 3-star rating from SchoolDigger. The school has significantly higher proficiency rates than the district and state in English Language Arts and Mathematics, often by 30-40 percentage points. It also has particularly strong performance in 6th and 7th grade ELA, with over 80% proficiency, and high proficiency rates in Algebra I and Geometry, even for 7th and 8th grade students. Additionally, the school has a lower chronic absenteeism rate of 14.9% compared to the district average.
All three middle schools in the Passaic City School District have extremely high free/reduced lunch rates, indicating that the student population comes from low-income families. The schools also have varying student-teacher ratios, with Passaic Gifted and Talented Academy School No. 20 having the highest ratio at 12.9, while Ellen Ochoa School Number 22 and Muhammad Ali School Number 23 have ratios of 9.8 and 8.6, respectively. This suggests that smaller class sizes and more individualized attention may not be the sole driver of student success in this district.
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