Summary
Rafael Cordero y Molina is a Jersey City, New Jersey, public school serving 794 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade as part of Jersey City Public Schools. Its latest results show a striking split: third-grade scores are well above state results, but eighth-grade scores are far below them. In 2025–2026, third-grade ELA and math proficiency were 68% and 69%, compared with 48% and 49% statewide; eighth-grade ELA and math were 31% and 6%, compared with 53% and 23%. The most important takeaway is that strong early-grade performance does not carry through evenly to the upper grades.
Among nearby schools, Cordero’s grade 3–5 results generally trail the group, especially in math: its averages were 57% in ELA and 52% in math, versus nearby-school averages of 64% and 61%. Its fifth-grade math score, 29%, was the lowest among the 10 nearby schools reporting that grade. Against district and state results, the picture is more mixed: across grades 3–8, average ELA proficiency was 52%, above the district’s 44% and just above the state’s 51%; average math was 37%, above the district’s 33% but below the state’s 40%. Fifth-grade science was 35%, 8 points below the nearby-school average.
Results have changed unevenly over time: average ELA proficiency across grades 3–8 fell 10 points from 2022–2023 to 2025–2026, while math rose 10 points, and neither trend was a steady year-by-year climb. SchoolDigger gives Cordero 3 stars and a 58th-percentile statewide ranking for 2025–2026, up from the 18th percentile in 2015–2016; five of the 10 nearby schools rank higher. The student-teacher ratio was 10.7 in 2024–2025, below the nearby-school average of 13.0. Free/reduced lunch eligible students were 39% in 2024–2025, compared with a 46% nearby-school average. Chronic absenteeism was 26%, above the district’s 24% and the state’s 14%. SchoolDigger’s measure of how well the school serves Asian students ranks it at the 79th percentile, above its overall standing; for special education students, it ranks at the 20th percentile, below overall.
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