New Jersey Department of Education Releases 2008 School Report Cards and 2008 Statewide Assessment Report

NJDOE News

For More Information Contact the Public Information Office:
    Faith Sarafin
    Kathryn Forsyth
    609-292-1126

For Immediate Release: February 4, 2009

New Jersey Department of Education Releases 2008 School Report Cards and 2008 Statewide Assessment Report

The New Jersey Department of Education today released the 2008 School Report Cards and the 2008 Statewide Assessment Reports.

As public accountability documents, the Report Cards contain detailed statistical profiles of all public schools in the state in the areas of school environment, student information, student performance indicators, staff information, and district/charter financial information.

The Statewide Assessment Report is the state’s annual summary of the results for the assessments administered in the spring of the year. School- and district-level information is grouped by DFG. In addition to the complete reporting of the disaggregated proficiency levels for each test at each grade level, there are highlights and trend information contained in graphs and charts for each test.

“With our state and nation facing such a severe economic downturn, we have an increased mandate to provide accountability for every dollar we spend on education,” said Commissioner of Education Lucille E. Davy. “The purpose of these reports is to enable members of the public to measure the progress of their local schools through the individual report cards and the trend information in the assessment summary.”

The report cards, established by legislation in 1995, are produced for all elementary and secondary schools, as well as vocational schools, special education schools, charter schools, and Special Services School Districts.

In addition to being a resource for community members to check the progress of their schools, the report card contains state-level information that is helpful in providing an overview of education in New Jersey.

Advanced Placement participation has risen from 15% statewide in 2005-06 to 18% in 2007-08.
State-level percentages of students’ intended pursuits after graduation in 2008 are as follows:

Four-year college	54 %
Two-year college	31 %
Other college	1.0%
Other Post-secondary School	2.3%
Military	1.4%
Apprenticeship	0.2%
Employment	6.3%
The rest are undecided or other

For districts with a K-12 population, the median administrative salary is $111,311 and the median for years of administrators’ experience is 22. For the K-12 faculty, the median salary is $57,242 and median for years of experience is 9.

The statewide average ratio of students per computer used for instruction has dropped over the years between 2001 and 2008 from 4.3 to 1 to 3.3 to 1.

All teachers must be certified by the state in the subjects they teach, but the state encourages teachers also to attain National Board certification which is a rigorous process that includes observations of a teacher’s classroom teaching. The numbers of teachers who are Nationally Board Certified has increased from 103 in 2006 to 152 in 2007 and 173 in 2008.

State assessments for grades 5-8 show only one year of results because they are new tests. Grades three and four will not be changed until next year. In this year’s NJ ASK3 math, the number of students scoring advanced proficient rose from 4.5% in 2006-07 to 23.3% in 2007-08.

There are 37 different Advanced Placement courses offered in high schools throughout New Jersey. The top six courses with the percentage of students that take them are as follows:

English Literature and Composition	(7.5%)
Calculus AB	(7.5%)
United States History	(7.0%)
Biology	(6.5%)
Chemistry	(5.5%)
Spanish language	(5.5%)

Many students in New Jersey live at home with parents who speak a language other than English. In 2007-08 the top six languages statewide that are spoken at home are as follows:

English	77.6%
Spanish	10.8%
Korean	0.6%
Portuguese	0.5%
Arabic	0.5%
Mandarin	0.4%

The report cards released today are the fourteenth to be produced under the 1995 state law that specifies much of the information to be reported and requires its annual distribution. They also represent the 18th time New Jersey has issued a report on its public schools, since the first report cards were distributed in 1989.

The school report card is on the department’s Web site at http://education.state.nj.us/rc/

The statewide assessment reports are on the department’s Web site at http://www.nj.gov/education/schools/achievement/2009/