Lincoln School

Lincoln School in Fairview, NJ, is a public middle school serving 635 students in grades 3 through 8 as part of the Fairview Public School District, a district that ranks in the bottom 5% statewide. The school has consistently received a 1-star rating and ranks in the bottom 20% of New Jersey middle schools, with 76% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Academically, Lincoln School's proficiency rates in English Language Arts and Mathematics are dramatically lower than nearby schools—for example, 6th grade ELA proficiency is just 19.2% compared to 62% at Leonia Middle School and 79% at Lewis F. Cole Middle School in Fort Lee. Similarly, 8th grade science proficiency is only 1.3%, the lowest among comparable schools, versus 37.3% at Leonia and 36.9% at Fort Lee.

Despite these challenges, Lincoln School has a notable strength in its Algebra I program: 81.3% of 8th graders taking the Algebra I End-of-Course exam were proficient, surpassing the state average of 38.2% and rivaling high-performing schools like Fort Lee (80.9%) and Leonia (98.5%). This "Algebra I anomaly" suggests the school effectively accelerates a select group of students, even as general math proficiency remains low (13-21% in grades 6-8). Additionally, the school has made impressive strides in reducing chronic absenteeism from a pandemic peak of 34.2% to just 6.7% in 2024-2025, far better than the state average of 14.4% and nearby schools like Emerson Middle School (13.3%) and Secaucus Middle School (13.4%).

However, this improvement in attendance has not translated into higher test scores, indicating that instructional quality or curriculum may be the primary barrier to academic growth. The school's performance with Special Education students is a relative bright spot (31st percentile statewide), but it struggles significantly with its White student population (bottom 3rd percentile). With a student-teacher ratio of 11.5—favorable compared to Emerson (14.9) and West New York Middle School (15.9)—and per-pupil spending of $10,180, the issue is not simply a lack of resources but likely the high concentration of poverty requiring more targeted interventions.