The Ethical Community Charter School, Jersey City NJ

Original Research by School Decision on The Ethical Community Charter School

The Ethical Community Charter School is a K-through-8 charter school located at 95 Broadway in Jersey City, serving as its own single-school district. It is a regular public school operating under a charter, not a private or magnet institution, and it draws a student body that reflects the extraordinary diversity of its home city. Jersey City itself is a dense, mixed-use urban environment that has transformed from a port and manufacturing center into a major financial hub, nicknamed "Wall Street West," while retaining distinct residential neighborhoods such as Downtown, Journal Square, the Heights, and India Square. The city is publicly described as the most ethnically diverse in the United States, with many languages spoken in a substantial share of homes and a large portion of residents foreign-born.

The school's enrollment is small for its grade span, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. The student composition is notably varied. Asian students make up the largest single group, followed by white students and Hispanic students, with Black students and students of two or more races also present in the mix. A modest majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the school serves a population with a range of economic backgrounds. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the provided records.

Academically, the school's performance on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments shows a pattern that parents will want to examine grade by grade. In English language arts, proficiency rates sit in a moderate range across the elementary grades, with fifth grade and eighth grade showing a higher share of students meeting the state's proficient-or-above threshold, while sixth and seventh grades are lower. In math, the picture is more uneven. Proficiency rates decline noticeably as students move into the middle school grades, with the eighth-grade math proficiency rate falling to a low single-digit figure. Science results follow a similar trajectory: fifth-grade science shows a moderate proficiency rate, while eighth-grade science is very low. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages results across all tested subjects and grades, sits below the midpoint relative to other districts in Hudson County.

Because the school ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and the data does not include information on chronic absenteeism, so a parent cannot evaluate those dimensions from this record. The district brief turned up no publicly reported changes of the kind that typically affect families, such as a recent referendum, property-tax shift, or curriculum overhaul.

For a family considering this school, a few things stand out. The school operates in a very high-cost housing market; home values and rents in the area are well above national averages, and the city has seen rapid population growth and ongoing waterfront redevelopment. The school itself is located on Broadway, a corridor in a city well-connected by PATH trains, NJ Transit buses, and ferries to Manhattan, so the commute options for parents are extensive. The peer environment is diverse across multiple dimensions of race, ethnicity, and income. The academic pattern, with English language arts holding in a moderate range while math and science decline markedly in middle school, is the kind of trend a parent should discuss directly with the school to understand what interventions or supports are in place for the upper grades. The school does not offer high school programming, so families will need a plan for ninth grade onward.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 8 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 438%

School 38% · District 38%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 34%

▼ 9 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 715%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 6%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 48%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 557%

School 57% · District 57%

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 633%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 733%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 853%

School 53% · District 53%

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Science

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 6%

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

This schoolThe Ethical Community Charter School School Distirct, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income27%Higher-income65%38 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income26%Higher-income67%40 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income35%Higher-income81%46 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income29%Higher-income40%11 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income37%Higher-income73%37 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income19%Higher-income77%57 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income16%Higher-income57%41 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income17%Higher-income52%35 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income12%Higher-income30%18 pp gap