The achievement gap at PHS

On August 21, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Kimberely Tew released the results of PHS’s New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment (NJGPA), which revealed disparities in pass rates between Asian, White, Black and Hispanic students. The NJGPA is a graduation requirement administered annually to 11th graders, though alternatives exist if a student does not pass the test.

Though PHS has been known for its testing disparities since at least 2005, when it was the subject of a New York Times article titled “The Achievement Gap in Elite High Schools,” district officials, teachers, and students say they aren’t giving up.

This summer, the Princeton Board of Education approved a five-member Affirmative Action team tasked with updating the Comprehensive Equity Plan, a two-part document mandated by the state law that outlines the district’s plan to combat inequalities within the education system, including achievement gaps.

“The work never ends; we have to explore and dive into data all the time. The data should help us make decisions about [whether] there are more programming or services that we can provide, and ... when we provide it. I think one of the foundational pieces of all of this work is building relationships with our students and with our families. [And] the more we know about our students, the more we can ... excite them in their learning,” said Angela Siso Stentz, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and a member of the district’s Affirmative Action team.

The 2025 NJGPA data showed that 74 percent of Black students and 50 percent of Hispanic students at PHS met the graduation requirements — compared to Asian, White, and students of other ethnicities having a 92 percent pass rate or higher. The report did not detail the NJGPA scores by income level. However, one of the priorities for Dr. Andrea Dinan, the director of the IDEAS center, is for all students to be able to access free, highquality tutoring — a service that can be unaffordable for many families.

“We’re working with the Pace Center [for Civic Engagement] at Princeton University, and we’re going to have five to seven tutors from Princeton University on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” said Dinan. “They’re going to provide SAT [and] ACT help and AP prep, and we’re going to target lower-resourced families, but it will be open to everyone. I think that’s one of the ways that it really works well — if it’s open to everyone, but we make sure that ... lower income students ... know about the opportunities.”

In solving an issue as complex as the achievement gap, teachers are playing a role in changing the culture within the classroom. PHS Social Studies teacher Dr. Katie Dineen is an advocate for an educational philosophy known as the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). First designed in the 1990s based on research in neuroscience, UDL advocates for a curriculum in which students are provided with multiple ways to acquire information and multiple ways to demonstrate what they know. Dineen is also working to make her classroom more culturally inclusive.

“You know, regardless of where [students] come from, and especially with AP [World History] being such a transitory and international community, there’s so many opportunities for students to bring their own family’s artifacts into the classroom, or their family’s perspectives or speakers,” said Dineen. “I think I [have] created a place for each student to feel as though their story and their origin are important enough to be centered in that curriculum.”

Furthermore, many clubs at PHS are also working on fostering a supportive community among underprivileged students. This includes Generation 1, a club focused on helping students who would be the first generation within their family to pursue higher education.

“I know from my personal experience, my mom didn’t get to pursue a further education, [so] I struggled a lot trying to figure out resources for SATs or college [applications] or just finding things in general to help me throughout my school journey,” said Aimy Solares-Zacarias ’26, who serves as the co-president of Generation 1. “Our main goal is to just help provide those resources for kids who are [first-generation students] on their pathway to [higher education].”

Solares-Zacarias recalls a period of academic isolation within her own journey where she was afraid to ask for help. Today, she encourages her fellow students to follow a path similar to her own by contacting Generation 1 to find a community of academic support. “If anyone is reading [this] and they’re a [first-generation] student, I want them to be able to reach out to us because I know it’s not embarrassing or a weakness to want to ask for help,” said Solares-Zacarias.