New Jersey Schools

    New Jersey was ranked forth in the nation for the 2005-06 school year by the Smartest State rankings based on Morgan Quinto’s annual designation. Quinto designates the states based on student achievement, positive outcomes, and personal attention from teachers, as well as 19 other factors. Almost 71% of New Jersey’s schools made their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements as part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. As part of NCLB, states are required to grade each school, district, and the state as a whole on a rising scale to promote grade level performance by every student by 2014. A total of 643 schools did not make their requirements, down from 822 in the 2004-05 testing. A school passing or not is based on results from standardized tests, the percentage of the student body participating in the tests, attendance rate, and (for high schools) graduation rate.

In the 2005-06 school year, 53% of students attended schools needing test score improvement. During the testing in the spring, 63 schools were removed from a “needing improvement” watch list based on meeting AYP standards two years in a row.

Over 30% of the entire state revenue goes to schools. Schools needing improvement may also petition for federal money to provide funding for after-school tutoring or other programs to help raise test scores. New Jersey spends almost $13,000 per student in public school.

For more information on New Jersey schools, visit http://www.state.nj.us/education.