NJ School SHOCKER: Study Finds MOST Districts Fail to Plan for Math & Literacy Success; Ramsey & Brick Stand Out!
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ramsey, NJ | October 16, 2025 – Is your local New Jersey school district’s “strategic plan” a true roadmap for success, or just a binder collecting dust? A new, eye-opening report from the New Jersey Policy Institute (NJPI) reveals a widespread systemic flaw: most of the state’s school districts have adopted strategic plans, but few are using them to set clear, measurable goals for improvement in crucial areas like student literacy and math.
The report, titled “Are We Planning for Achievement?”, reviewed 50 diverse district plans across urban, suburban, and rural areas and delivered a sobering verdict: the majority of districts lack the focus, measurement, and follow-through necessary to drive academic change.
The “Sobering” Gap in Planning
NJPI scored 50 strategic plans based on a 20-point rubric, evaluating elements like measurable goals, progress monitoring, and transparency. Most districts landed in the 5 to 10 point range, indicating a significant disconnect between their stated initiatives and tangible student outcomes.
Wells Winegar, Executive Director of the NJPI, stated plainly, “Student outcomes don’t change without strategic planning for the future, and that requires leadership, alignment, and clear goals… Too many districts are focusing on initiatives without defining what success actually looks like for their students.”
Effective strategic planning, according to the institute, requires districts to clearly define three essential components:
- Goals: Specific, measurable indicators of student knowledge or ability over a 3–5 year period.
- Interim Goals: Ongoing, real-time metrics used to track progress toward the larger goals.
- Aligned Initiatives: Daily strategies and actions that staff and students take to directly achieve the established goals.
New Jersey’s Bright Spots: Ramsey and Brick Township
Despite the overall mediocre performance, the NJPI report shines a spotlight on a few districts that are succeeding by embracing rigorous, data-driven planning. These districts prove that accountability and transparency are achievable within the current state environment:
- Ramsey Public Schools: Identified improving student outcomes as its top priority. The district set explicit proficiency targets aligned to state assessments and provides a public-facing dashboard for families to track real-time progress.
- Brick Township Public Schools: Established a comprehensive three-year plan specifically designed to measurably raise literacy and math proficiency across all grade levels, complete with timelines and embedded progress monitoring systems.
“These districts prove that focus, transparency, and community accountability are possible… They show that strategic planning, when done right, is a powerful lever for student success,” said Andy Mulvihill, Board Chair of the NJPI.
A Call to Action for Boards and Superintendents
With hundreds of thousands of New Jersey students currently performing below grade level in foundational skills like reading and math, the NJPI emphasizes that the time for “vague aspirations” is over.
The report urges school boards and superintendents to adopt SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) academic goals and ensure all district resources and initiatives are directly aligned to those goals. Strategic plans should not be treated as bureaucratic formalities but as the critical first step toward continuous improvement and measurable progress for every student in the Garden State.
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Ridgewood is pursuing a different agenda.
So, I have a little bit of an educated opinion here…I think it’s the lack of focus on AP classes at RHS. I have two daughters that attended RHS – both of them were discouraged, perhaps even forbidden, to take more than 5 APs and were allowed to skip taking the AP exam afterwards. This was because the school wants them to instead do one of the “special” tracks like RAHP or AHLISA (AMSTED?)
Then we moved to Georgia and have one child going through a High School down here. VERY different. He was taking APS as a Sophmore – he has 5 or 6 (Junior Year) at this point and has passed all the exams. He’ll finish with about 10 APs (in all subjects, not just STEM).
Regardless of what RHS leads you to believe – that’s proven to be a big advantage. My daughter at the Clemson (Honors) noted that almost ALL the other Honors College kids had many more APs than she does, and those APs allowed them to place-out of classes at college to free up time for more advanced courses. Her roommate had 12 APs and started as a Sophmore.
I never understood RHS’s focus on the “special” tracks – Colleges generally don’t know about them so they are of dubious value – APs are demonstratively better!