Lincoln, Garwood NJ - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Lincoln

Lincoln is a single public PK-8 school that serves the entire borough of Garwood, a small, densely populated community in Union County. Because the school stops at eighth grade, local students move on to Arthur L. Johnson High School in neighboring Clark under a sending-receiving arrangement that parents new to the area will want to understand before enrolling. The district brief turned up no reportable recent changes to the district itself, so the picture here is driven by the school’s own academic results and by Garwood’s character.

Garwood itself is a compact borough, tight on space and bisected by rail tracks, with a modest commercial strip along Route 28 and a live music venue called Crossroads that gives it a little personality. It has been growing visibly through redevelopment, including the conversion of an old industrial building into apartments and a new senior housing development. Housing values in the zip code are high, above national benchmarks, and the county housing market is active, with homes moving fairly quickly. That growth context suggests a community in transition, with more families arriving.

At Lincoln, the student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic minority and small shares of Black, Asian, and multiracial students. A little less than a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that places Lincoln modestly below the county-wide economic-need average for a district its size. There was no data on special education or English learner populations, so a parent wanting to understand those supports would need to ask the school directly.

State testing results for 2024-25 show a school with clear strengths in English language arts and more variable performance in math and science. In ELA, proficiency rates climb steadily from third grade through eighth grade, with particularly strong results in grades four, seven, and eight, where a large majority of students met the state’s proficiency bar. Math results are more mixed. Proficiency in grades three, five, six, and eight hovered in the mid-to-upper third range, while fourth and seventh graders did better, with seventh grade posting the strongest math showing. Science results, tested only in grades five and eight, were lower, with fewer than half of students proficient at either grade level. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint relative to other districts in Union County, a solid middle-to-upper performance among its county peers.

The school’s grade span means there are no graduation rate or chronic absenteeism figures to report, and no data on discipline or course access was available. The building itself is regular public school in type, not a charter or magnet.

For a parent considering Garwood, Lincoln offers a straightforward elementary-to-middle-school progression in a single building within a small, growing borough. The ELA program appears to be a genuine strength, especially for older elementary and middle school students. The math and science numbers are more uneven, and a parent who has a child with particular difficulty in those subjects may want to look into this further with the school. The high school arrangement with Clark is a separate decision point that will shape the total educational picture, and that is not something Lincoln controls.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 341%

School 41% · District 41%

▼ 9 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 454%

School 54% · District 54%

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 39%

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

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 36%

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

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 41 pts above county median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 347%

School 47% · District 47%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 475%

School 75% · District 75%

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 54%

even with state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 657%

School 57% · District 57%

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

Grade 777%

School 77% · District 77%

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 884%

School 84% · District 84%

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Science

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 27%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

This schoolGarwood Boro, 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-income31%Higher-income56%24 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income57%Higher-income82%25 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income69%Higher-income46%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income66%36 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income50%Higher-income85%35 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income58%Higher-income94%35 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income29%Higher-income48%19 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income43%Higher-income58%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income39%Higher-income39%0 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income10%Higher-income45%35 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income40%Higher-income70%30 pp gap