{"id":126,"date":"2024-08-30T03:40:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T03:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2025-12-29T18:44:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:44:57","slug":"truth-in-advertising-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/30\/truth-in-advertising-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth in Advertising – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A REMARKABLE 9 out of 10 score on The Great School Rating! These stats were echoed in Strategic Planning, Linking Leadership, and even at Board of Education meetings. This high honor also appeared in forms submitted to the state. Appearing next to the debunked notion that \u2018FTS is the leader of Hunterdon schools\u2019 on the NJ Performance Report\u2019s \u2018School Highlights Reported by District\u2019 section.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s the thing when you look into it. The Great Score Rating is not a state\/federal assessment or study, or even a competition; from all indications they are referring to a website. The website is called GreatSchools.org<\/a>. GreatSchools, with no space between the words, is the company\u2019s name and branding. They collect publicly released data combined with parent reviews to create a GreatSchools\u2122 Rating. It\u2019s like an unofficial Yelp page for schools. FTS has one review from 2010. The site\u2019s own Terms of Use recommends not citing ratings for anything another than personal use because, \u201cGreatSchools does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information on the website.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an odd highlight to include in official reports and the wordplay is dubious, again indicating that they \u2018lead\u2019 somehow, but that may be beside the point. What\u2019s really remarkable is that Franklin Township Elementary actually only ever received a GreatSchools rating of 6 out of 10 on the Greatschool.org<\/a> website\u2026 And has for years. WaybackMachine\/Internet Archives confirm this, archive screen shots attached for reference. (*There was one data abnormality on May 25th, 2024, where the rating popped up to an 8 out of 10, but the site\u2019s algorithm returned it back to 6 out of 10 one week later on June 6th 2024.)<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/great_schools_1.jpg” title_text=”great_schools_1″ align=”%22center%22″ align_tablet=”center” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”%22default%22″ width=”%2271%%22″ animation_style=”slide” animation_direction=”left” animation_duration=”500ms” animation_intensity_slide=”10%” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”%22{}%22″ sticky_enabled=”0″ align_phone=”center”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”%22default%22″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”%22{}%22″]<\/p>\n

The fact is this, the near perfect \u2018rank\u2019 and \u2018leader of Hunterdon schools\u2019 claim were just made up by either the board of education or the out-going superintendent in the past 2-3 years, because this type of wording appears on both School & District materials, and they are the only ones with the authority to green light what gets submitted to the state. It all seems designed to confuse parents about FTS\u2019 actual performance situation and\/or to artificially inflate the administration and school\u2019s credibility for when parents individually question their child\u2019s reading or math levels. We can\u2019t start a fix on the academic issues in the report until we address these glaring ethical issues on the cover. If anyone at the school has information or data that would counter our assertions, we welcome it. Until then Franklin voters are wise to be skeptical of any presentations the Superintendent and BOE put forward.<\/p>\n

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Or just think of it this way, the folks who run the school were asked to highlight the school\u2019s best attributes and this is the best they could come up with for the first two sentences. All wild stuff.<\/p>\n

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2021 Great Schools Ranking<\/h4>\n

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<\/h4>\n

2023 Great Schools Ranking<\/h4>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/great_schools_2.jpg” title_text=”great_schools_2″ align=”%22center%22″ align_tablet=”center” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”%22default%22″ width=”%2271%%22″ animation_style=”slide” animation_direction=”left” animation_duration=”500ms” animation_intensity_slide=”10%” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”%22{}%22″ sticky_enabled=”0″ align_phone=”center”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”%22default%22″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”%22{}%22″]<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll leave it there for now and later in the week we\u2019ll dig into how 22-23 NJSLA assessment scores translates to FTS\u2019 overall student population. We appreciate you taking the time to read this.<\/p>\n

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A REMARKABLE 9 out of 10 score on The Great School Rating! These stats were echoed in Strategic Planning, Linking Leadership, and even at Board of Education meetings. This high honor also appeared in forms submitted to the state. Appearing next to the debunked notion that \u2018FTS is the leader of Hunterdon schools\u2019 on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-board-effectiveness","category-school-performance","category-superintendent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neighborswantingchange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}