A JerseyCAN Research Report

The State of

New Jersey

Public Education, 2013

Preface

This report is personal.

New Jersey is my home. My story isn’t exceptional, but I think that’s what makes it important. My story is shared by so many individuals and families across the state.

I grew up in a loving, large Irish Catholic family. We moved towns when I was young so that my siblings and I could attend a better elementary school. Then when it was time for us to attend high school my parents pulled together the money to send us to Catholic school because our public high school was severely struggling.

Now I have a son and I’m trying to figure out the options to make sure he will have a great education. It’s what every parent wants.

But it’s not--as this report shows--what every parent gets in today’s New Jersey. The educational inequities in our state are a moral failing. The concept that you can have kids on one side of the street getting access to phenomenal schools and on the other side attending failing schools cannot persist.

In my professional life I have been so lucky to be able to see schools first-hand in New Jersey that are amazing--that includes public schools both traditional and charter. That’s happening right here. You go to these schools and you think, ‘I would love to get my child into this school.’ But I’ve also been to places where that’s absolutely not the case. At first glance, some schools look happy and well-run, but a harder look at the data will keep you up at night.

I feel so lucky to have seen some of our state's most inspiring and transformative public schools, but I also feel a tremendous responsibility to do something about the other side of our public school system.

That’s why I’m so proud to be the founding executive director of JerseyCAN: The New Jersey Campaign for Achievement Now. After working in education policy in New Jersey for the last several years, I have seen an enormous need for research, data and best practices to inform the debate.

We're already making real progress to improve our schools. State leaders recently expanded the inter-district choice program and approved much-needed reforms to the ways we evaluate and reward teachers. But we can’t stop there. There is much more work to be done, and it starts with getting the facts.

I hope you’ll join me, starting by exploring this inaugural report--the first of many--in our effort to create great public policies so that every New Jersey child has access to a great public school.


Janellen Duffy
Founding Executive Director, JerseyCAN

The kids

There are nearly 1.4 million students in New Jersey. They differ in race, economic standing and native language, but every one of these children deserves a great school.

Student demographics, 2011–2012

The schools

There are 603 school districts and thousands of schools in New Jersey’s K–12 system. Each one of them is responsible for providing our children with a great education.

New Jersey's K-12 Public School System, 2011-2012



A great education begins with pre-K. Children who receive a pre-K education have stronger vocabulary skills, higher school attendance rates and better English-language arts and math test scores. New Jersey's pre-K system meets most quality benchmarks put forth by the National Institute for Early Education Research, including comprehensive learning standards, proper degree requirements for teachers and appropriate staff-to-child ratios. Our state spends $11,699 per child enrolled in pre-K, making us the national leader in early education spending. This investment has resulted in the country’s second highest pre-K enrollment rate of 3-year-olds. But when it comes to the pre-K enrollment rate of 4-year-olds, New Jersey places a middling 16th out of 39 states.

New Jersey students’ access to state-funded pre-K programs

Total state program enrollment
51,207
Number of students enrolled in federally funded Head Start programs
13,871
Number of students enrolled in state-funded Head Start programs
0
Percentage of 3-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs
18%
Percentage of 3-year-olds enrolled in Head Start programs
6%
National Institute for Early Education Research’s access ranking for 3-year-olds
2nd out of 24
Percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs
28%
Percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in Head Start programs
7%
National Institute for Early Education Research’s access ranking for 4-year-olds
16th out of 39

The money

New Jersey spends $16,841 per pupil, second only to New York in the region. That dollar amount far outpaces the national average of $10,615 per pupil.

Regional comparison of per-pupil spending, 2009–2010

The learning

But the more important question is: what are New Jerseyans getting in return for their investment?

Last year’s New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge shows that more than half of black eighth-graders missed the proficient mark in math. Though Latino students fared 11 points better, both groups still trail significantly behind their white and Asian peers. But the students who struggled the most were English-language learners and those in special education--the only two groups where at least half of eighth-graders could not meet the proficiency minimum in language arts literacy.

Percentage of students scoring at least proficient on the New Jersey State Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, 2012

Math
ELA

Fourth-graders

Eighth-graders

Sources for math and language arts in 4th grade and 8th grade


The Nation’s Report Card is another barometer of student achievement that allows us to compare results between states. Its proficiency rates are also more closely aligned to the results we expect to see on the forthcoming 2013-2014 Common Core State Standards-aligned tests. The new Common Core-aligned exams are part of a state-led initiative to adopt clear academic standards that will better prepare students for college and the workplace. Data from the Nation’s Report Card puts New Jersey’s eighth-graders near the top nationally in overall math and reading proficiency. But despite our state’s high national ranking, fewer than half of our eighth-graders are ready to meet the rigor of Common Core assessments in math and reading.

Percentage of New Jersey eighth-graders scoring at least proficient on Nation’s Report Card in math and reading, 2011

Math
Reading

Fourth-graders

Eighth-graders

Sources for math in 4th grade and 8th grade; reading in 4th grade and 8th grade.


The College Board sets an SAT score of 1550 as the benchmark for college and career readiness. By that standard, the average New Jersey student isn’t prepared for higher education and the workplace. And though SAT participation has risen slightly over the last six years, performance is stagnant.

Trends in New Jersey’s SAT participation

Trends in New Jersey’s SAT performance

Critical Reading
Math
Writing
Total score (out of 2400 possible points)

Regional comparison of SAT performance, 2011

Although New Jersey scores higher than most neighboring states, we still fall short of the College Board’s college- and career-readiness benchmark.

Sources for New Jersey SAT participation and performance.
Sources for regional SAT performance: Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York.

The gaps

New Jersey’s end-of-year state tests reveal wide achievement gaps between students of color and their white classmates, a trend that has remained stubbornly steady over the past three years. Today black fourth-graders trail their white peers by about 30 percentage points in reading and math.

Achievement gaps:
Black
Latino

Statewide achievement gaps on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills And Knowledge results, 2010-2012

Percentage of fourth-graders proficient or above in Math

Percentage of fourth-graders proficient or above in Language arts

Achievement gaps:
Black
Latino

Statewide achievement gaps on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills And Knowledge results, 2010-2012

Percentage of eighth-graders proficient or above in Math

Percentage of eighth-graders proficient or above in Language arts

Sources for math and reading proficiency in 4th grade, in 2010, 2011 and 2012; and in 8th grade, during 2010, 2011 and 2012.


According to the Nation’s Report Card, New Jersey’s proficiency achievement gaps are much wider than the national average. In reading, eighth-grade black students trail their white peers by a whopping 35 points, 8 percentage points higher than the rest of the country. The gulf is even bigger in math, where black students lag 38 points behind white students, surpassing the national average by 8 percentage points.

State-to-national comparison of eighth-grade proficiency achievement gaps in reading, 2011

Math (in percentage points)

  • Jurisdiction
  • Black/white achievement gap
  • 38
  • 30
  • Latino/white achievement gap
  • 35
  • 23
  • Low-income/non-low-income achievement gap
  • 33
  • 28

Reading (in percentage points)

  • Jurisdiction
  • Black/white achievement gap
  • 35
  • 27
  • Latino/white achievement gap
  • 34
  • 23
  • Low-income/non-low-income achievement gap
  • 35
  • 26
Sources for reading here and here, and math here and here.


Ultimately, our schools should be preparing our students for college and career readiness. A good barometer of that is Advanced Placement courses, which give high school students a taste of college-level rigor and an opportunity to earn college credits by scoring a three or higher on an end-of-year exam. But AP success rates among black, Latino and Native American students is shockingly low compared to their white and Asian counterparts.

PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES SCORING THREE OR HIGHER ON AN AP EXAM AT ANY POINT IN HIGH SCHOOL, 2011



On the SAT, black and Latino students are more than 200 points short of the college- and career-ready benchmark of 1550.

New Jersey SAT performance by race, 2011

The dropouts

Achievement gaps have disastrous consequences for our children. Without the necessary math and reading skills for high school, black and Latino students are less likely than their white and Asian peers to graduate. Some students are stuck in dropout factories, high schools in which 40 percent or more of students have dropped out by 12th grade. Since 2002, the number of dropout factories in New Jersey has barely changed.


Percentage of students
who graduated
in four years

New Jersey’s four-year high school graduation rates for the 2007 cohort

Regional comparison of dropout factories

Number of dropout factories in:
2002
2010

The graduates

Preparing students for college is critical to our state’s economy. By the year 2018, 63 percent of New Jersey’s jobs will require education beyond high school. Though 63 percent of students at four-year colleges graduated within six years, less than 20 percent of students at two-year colleges earn their degree after four years.

Four-year graduation rates of degree- and certificate-seeking students at two-year colleges by state, 2008

One = 10%
  • Pennsylvania45%
  • New York32%
  • Massachusetts26%
  • Connecticut21%
  • New Jersey20%

Six-year graduation rates of bachelor’s degree-seeking students at four-year colleges, 2008

The policies

New Jersey’s successful Race to the Top application, adoption of the Common Core State Standards and development of a statewide teacher evaluation instrument are all promising harbingers of better schools. But we can’t stop there. Our state needs to take steps to ensure that charter schools are provided with adequate funding and held accountable for results. To ensure that every child has access to a great school, we must keep pushing forward with improvements that advance greater choices, greater accountability and greater flexibility.

New Jersey’s progress on improving schools

Did New Jersey win funding in Phase 1, 2 or 3 of the federal government’s Race to the Top Competition?
Yes, $37,847,648 in Phase 3
Did New Jersey win funding from the federal government's Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge?
No
Did New Jersey receive a waiver from the federal government’s education requirements?
Yes
Did New Jersey adopt the Common Core State Standards?
Yes
Did New Jersey join a Common Core State Standards consortium?
Yes, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
Does New Jersey have a statewide teacher evaluation system?
Yes
Is student achievement factored into a teacher’s evaluation?
Yes
What ranking did the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools assign to New Jersey’s charter school law?
29th out of 43
Are multiple authorizers available in New Jersey’s application process for opening a charter school?
No
Does New Jersey have an oversight body in charge of holding charter school authorizers accountable for student achievement outcomes?
No
In practice, do New Jersey charter schools and traditional public schools have equal access to funding?
No
Sources

The next steps

The facts in this report prove that in order for our state to thrive in the future, we need education reform now. Several things are clear:

- Despite spending more than most states in our region, New Jersey’s students of color and high-needs students are too often unprepared to enter college or a career after graduation.

- New Jersey’s black-white and Latino-white achievement gaps exceed the national average.

- On the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, the achievement gap between students of color and their white classmates has barely budged, indicating that zip code and race frequently determine the quality of education our children receive.

- Although we have made recent, significant changes to the education system in New Jersey by passing a new teacher evaluation system and teacher tenure reform, we still need to fight for further reform that will positively impact our students.

The good news is that we are making progress in our classrooms, schools and state capitol. JerseyCAN is dedicated to leading the fight for better public education for all of our students in 2013 and beyond. We won’t give up until every student has access to a great public school.

It will take an entire movement of New Jerseyans to enact the change our schools so desperately need. We hope you join us.

We won’t rest until
every student has access
to a great public school.