Depending on whose math you follow, districts could be in line for $1 billion to $2 billion
In his final year in office, Gov. Chris Christie set a deadline of early June for reaching a compromise with the Legislature about school funding — and offered to sit down with lawmakers to hammer out a compromise.
But halfway through his 100-day challenge, little has happened — at least publicly. In the meantime, the administration has been forced to release details about the $1 billion or more at stake for districts in the debate.
Meghan Grant , Staff Writer5:51 p.m. ET April 17, 2017
Rutherford will receive $368,000 and Ridgewood $400,000 in funding intended to make bicycling and walking to school safer for local children. The Department of Transportation announced its Safe Routes to School grant recipients last week.
Intended to encourage children, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school as a transportation alternative, the grants program facilitates the planning, development and implementation of projects that improve safety, reduce traffic and improve air quality through decreased fuel consumption around schools.
TRENTON — The average SAT score among New Jersey’s public high schools was a 1,075 out of 1,600 last school year, but plenty of schools posted significantly more impressive scores.
Statewide, 19 high schools achieved an average score higher than 1,300, including five with an average score above 1,400, according to state data.
Specialized schools with selective enrollment and run by county vocational districts once again dominate the list of highest average scores, taking home the top 12 spots.
Here are the 51 New Jersey high schools with the highest SAT scores. The list begins with number 49 because of a three-way tie.
The issue is school choice. The opposition is the teachers unions
Shortly after Betsy DeVos was sworn into office as U.S. Secretary of Education, I was invited, as a trustee of Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), to meet with her at the Department of Education. I accepted the invitation with pleasure.
When I posted a picture of myself with DeVos on Facebook, it got some likes from conservative friends and some acerbic comments from others, including my sister, who asked me, “When did you start drinking the Kook-Aid?” I replied to her that I’ve supported school choice for decades and was the only member of the New Jersey Congressional delegation to vote for the first school-choice floor amendment in 1994.
Dick Zimmer and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
I am a product of New Jersey public schools, K–12, as are my parents and my children, but ever since I read Milton Friedman’s proposal for school vouchers in “Capitalism and Freedom” as a college freshman, I have been convinced that parents should be allowed to have the government pay for the school they choose for their children, whether it be traditional public, public charter, private, or religious.
There is no reason why all parents shouldn’t be given this choice, but the stakes are particularly high for the poorest families in the inner cities, including those in New Jersey where, despite tens of billions of dollars of supplemental state funding, traditional public schools have abjectly failed to prepare several generations of children for college or a career.
#5 Ridgewood High School sent 94.2 percent of its students to four-year colleges. The high school has more than 1,700 students
Updated April 13, 2017
Posted April 13, 2017
By Sara Jerde | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
New Jersey’s Department of Education released performance reports Tuesday for schools based on the 2015-16 school year. The information included a range of details from the schools, including test scores and class sizes.
Don’t miss our SAT comparison tool, which enables you to compare the SAT scores of any public high school in the state.
In the state’s most populated county, Bergen, most schools that submitted data to the state had a higher percentage of students go to four-year colleges than the statewide average of 66.1 percent.
Here are the 20 public high schools that submitted school-wide data to the state that produces the most students who head to four-year colleges.
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 09, 2017 at 7:00 AM, updated April 09, 2017 at 9:47 AM
TRENTON — None of Piscataway Township’s teachers took a sick day last year, faculty at one Sussex County school were absent for nearly half of the year, and teachers at another school showed up only 10 percent of the time.
Those unlikely scenarios all played out last school year, at least according to data released in the state’s school report cards.
New Jersey for the first time last week released statistics for how often teachers and support staff miss school, showing that the vast majority of teachers are in the classroom more than 90 percent of the time.
But the faculty attendance rates, released amid a national push to judge schools on more than just test scores, also include a series of implausible statistics and misleading mistakes, school officials say.
Editors note : it used to be academics ,good grades , a strong essay, some extra curricular
This New Jersey student’s unconventional approach to applying for college paid off for him.
On his Stanford University application, Ziad Ahmed was posed the question “What matters to you, and why?”
The 18-year-old activist from Princeton, New Jersey, decided to use the opportunity to write “#BlackLivesMatter” 100 times.
To his surprise, the answer caught the attention of the California school’s admissions office and Ahmed received his acceptance letter on Friday.
“I didn’t think I would get admitted to Stanford at all, but it’s quite refreshing to see that they view my unapologetic activism as an asset rather than a liability,” Ahmed told Mic.
Ridgewood NJ, The New Jersey Department of Education ( NJDOE) has posted its School Performance Report for the 2015-16 school year.
As in previous years, the report allows visitors to view the academic performance of any district or any school by grade level. The report also includes a broad array of information not included in past years.
According to the NJDOE website :The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) presents the 2015-16 School Performance Reports. These reports are designed to inform parents, educators and communities about how well a school is performing and preparing its students for college and careers. In particular, the School Performance Reports seek to:
Focus attention on metrics that are indicative of college and career readiness.
Benchmark a school’s performance against other schools that are educating similar students, against district and state-wide outcomes, and against state targets to illuminate and build upon a school’s strengths and identify areas for improvement.
Improve educational outcomes for students by providing both longitudinal and growth data so that progress can be measured as part of an individual school’s efforts to engage in continuous improvement.
The latest report provides data on faculty attendance, absenteeism, PSAT and ACT performance in addition to SAT scores, advanced placement and international baccalaureate counts, and the percentage of students concentrating in approved career and technical education programs.
However the report no longer provides “peer school comparisons,” however, which compared each school’s data to a group of similar schools.
For Ridgewood High School “Academic Achievement” : School wide Performance 72% of students met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts Literacy Met or Exceeded Expectations putting RHS in the 91% Statewide Percentile.In Mathematics 71% of students met or exceeded expectations putting RHS in the 99% Statewide Percentile.
For College and Career Readiness Indicators , Percent of Students Participating in PSAT , RHS 64.4% vs Statewide 95.5% .
Percent of Students Participating in SAT ,RHS 42.4% vs Statewide 58.0% .
Percent of Students Participating in ACT ,RHS 58.4% vs Statewide 27.6%.
2017-18 SCHOOL BUDGET PRESENTATION EVENT April 5 2017 7:30 PM to April 6 2017 7:30 PM Location Benjamin Franklin Middle School, George Washington Middle School
April 5,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, At the March 6 Board of Education meeting, Business Administrator Dr. Alfredo Aguilar presented the preliminary 2017-2018 budget, which is based on a .97% local tax levy increase. The total preliminary budget is $105,565,593, which would mean a $184.39 annual tax increase on the average assessed Ridgewood home of $696,093.
Click here to view the preliminary budget presentation as a PDF.
Following discussion, the Board approved the following resolution for Adoption of the 2017-2018 Preliminary Proposed Budget for Submission to the Executive County Superintendent of Schools:
BE IT RESOLVED, by the Ridgewood Board of Education, to approve the 2017-2018 school district preliminary proposed budget, as follows, for submission to the Executive County Superintendent of Schools:
There should be raised for the General Fund Tax Levy $91,519,173 for the ensuing School Year: (2017-2018).
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 04, 2017 at 7:31 AM, updated April 04, 2017 at 11:14 AM
TRENTON — New Jersey’s new plan for grading its schools for the federal government places less weight on passing state exams and extra importance on other factors, such as the performance of students learning to speak English and academic progress among students who don’t pass standardized tests.
The state Monday filed its federal accountability plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the new federal education law that replaced No Child Left Behind. All states are required to file a plan to the federal government.
The ESSA plan calls for decreasing the importance of standardized test scores in rating schools and giving states more flexibility to decide how to intervene in struggling school districts.
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 30, 2017 at 5:26 PM
PRINCETON — Flooded with a record-high 30,056 applications, Princeton University accepted just 1,890 students in its Class of 2021, a record-low 6.1 percent admission rate, the university announced.
The decisions, available for students to track online beginning at 5 p.m., leave thousands of top students rejected. More than 12,000 applicants had a 4.0 GPA in high school, according to the university.
Princeton accepted 6.4 percent of applicants last year.
“The admitted students will bring extraordinary talents, achievements and motivation to the Princeton community,” Dean of Admission Janet Lavin Rapelye said. “Their diverse range of skills, ideas, backgrounds and beliefs were evident to the committee as we gave careful consideration to each application.”
Oral arguments before a Mercer County Superior Court judge are scheduled for May 3
March 31,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Trenton NJ, Six Newark parents yesterday opposed motions to dismiss HG v. Harrington, the lawsuit they filed last November challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law. The motions to dismiss the case were filed earlier this month by local and national teachers unions, who intervened as defendants in the case last December. Oral arguments on the motions to dismiss are scheduled for 2pm on May 3 before the Mercer County Superior Court. Defendants from Newark Public Schools and the New Jersey Department of Education did not move to dismiss the case.
“The teachers unions clearly are not looking out for students’ best interests,” said Kathleen Reilly, attorney with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, one of the law firms representing the Newark parents pro bono. “With education budget deficits in the tens of millions of dollars, the court urgently needs to hear these parents’ concerns about laws that require schools to keep ineffective teachers while letting effective ones go. If students’ educational rights are valued, these laws cannot stand.”
In their answer to the lawsuit, defendants from the Newark Public Schools overwhelmingly conceded that the LIFO law harms students, acknowledging that enforcement of LIFO in Newark will remove quality teachers, which leads to lower test scores, lower high school graduation rates, lower college attendance rates, and sharply reduced lifetime earnings. They also admit that the current practice of keeping ineffective teachers on the district payroll, including those in a pool of “educators without placement sites” (EWPS) is harmful and unsustainable, and that the EWPS pool would be wholly unnecessary were it not for LIFO.
To learn more about the parent-led lawsuit to end LIFO in New Jersey, please go to edjustice.org/nj. All legal filings related to HG v. Harrington are available online here.
By Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 29, 2017 at 6:16 AM, updated March 29, 2017 at 1:33 PM
PATERSON – Two high school students have been arrested on terrorist threat charges after they allegedly talked about killing their former elementary school teachers.
The students, who both attend Eastside High School, made statements about “engaging in a Columbine-like attack,” according to NorthJersey.com.
The students are a 14-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy, according to Paterson Police Director Jerry Speziale.
