CAMDEN, N.J. – Students in the Camden, New Jersey school district ranked among the worst in the state during the most recent round of standardized testing, despite significant spending by local officials.

Philly.com reports the vast majority of Camden students in grades three through 11 who took the new Common Core aligned PARCC test for the first time this year were not proficient in math or language arts.

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“About 6 percent of district students in grades three through eight are proficient in language arts, with about 4 percent testing proficient in math,” according to the news site. “Just 5 to 8 percent of high school students tested close to the statewide proficiency rate in language arts. For math, that number was 1 to 3 percent of high school students.”

Student test results were abysmal statewide, but Camden’s results are the worst that have been released by the state so far, undoubtedly an embarrassment for local administrators who have been criticized in recent years for exorbitant spending.

EAGnews last year pointed out that despite a 14-to-1 student to teacher ratio, and much higher spending than other districts at $26,000 per student – about $8,000 per student more than the state average – less than half of the Camden’s students graduated high school.

That’s likely because much of the spending went to unnecessary expenses that have little to nothing to do with improving academics.

An analysis of the district’s 2012-13 spending showed district officials spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take students bowling and skating and to amusement parks, for instance.

The EAGnews analysis found “Camden students enjoyed jaunts to various performing arts theaters ($57,587); professional sporting events ($10,112); amusement parks ($20,427); movies theaters, bowling alleys and arcades ($23,759); the Medieval Times dinner theater ($13,668); museums, zoos and aquariums ($120,174).

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“School officials told the Board of Education that the bowling outings improved student’s ‘hand eye coordination.’ … They told the board that roller skating outings helped students ‘expand muscle coordination, balance and rhythm,’ … (and) trips to amusement parks are meant to improve students’ ‘math and physics skills.’”

The needless field trips, however, were dwarfed by the cash administrators spent on themselves or other staff members, including nearly $1 million in legal fees, $394,818 in professional conferences and workshops, $708,817 on consultants, $86,989 on restaurants and catering and $160,666 on drug and alcohol treatment.

The district’s Verizon Wireless cell phone bill alone averaged $4,287 a month in 2012-13, according to the EAGnews report.

The incredible spending, obviously, did very little if anything to improve student learning in Camden, as the most recent test results make plain, though Philly.com noted it’s unclear how many students opted out of the PARCC tests. District officials told the news site more than a third of students don’t show up to school on a daily basis.

And while Camden may be among the worst performing school districts in New Jersey, they’re certainly not the only district to produce severely disappointing student test results.

According to Philly.com:

Students in other cities also scored low, according to released figures. Between 10 and 17 percent of Trenton students in grades three through eight are proficient in language arts, and between 4 and 14 percent are proficient in math. In Newark, also under state control, those figures are between 17 to 28 percent, and 17 and 22 percent, respectively.

Twelve to 20 percent of high school students in Trenton demonstrated proficiency in language arts, with zero to 7 percent demonstrating proficiency in math. In Newark, 19 to 28 percent of high school students met expectations for their grades in language arts, with 5 to 18 percent meeting proficiency for math.