NJ Education Report

School Watch, the policy arm of the Excellent Education for Everyone think tank, has issued a fulminating report on the dismal state of the Newark Public Schools called “Money for Nothing: We Owe Our Children Better.” Here’s your grains of salt: E3 is pro-charter schools and anti-teacher union, and the report itself edges occasionally into overwrought territory. Nonetheless, it spotlights some worthwhile information. Here’s a couple of facts:

Newark Public Schools is the biggest district, and the biggest Abbott district, in the state: 40,000 kids.
The NPS annual budget (not including construction): $1 billion
Annual cost per pupil: $23,141 (17% more than the average Abbott district in N.J.)
Annual cost per pupil in the 12 charter schools in Newark: $9,989
Average teacher salary in N.J.: $55,000
Average teacher salary in Newark: $77,827
Percentage of N.P.S. that make A.Y.P.: 40%
Percentage of Newark charter schools that make A.Y.P.: 75%
Percentage of N.P.S. students who pass the H.S.P.A.: 40.3%
Percentage of N.P.S. students who graduate: 73.6%

There’s lots more to chew on, including tidbits like “the N.P.S.’s is operated as an overhead-heavy, adult-centered bureaucracy,” “Newark’s High School Achievement: Fraud and Failure,” high schools referred to as “drop-out factories,” the “dance of the lemons” (the annual to-and-froing when teachers are released from schools for poor performance and bump a less-senior teacher at another school), and the overuse of the Student Review Assessment (S.R.A.), which grants diplomas to students who can’t pass the H.S.P.A. (an 8th-grade level test, according to Commissioner Lucille Davy).

Who takes the blame, according to E3? First, the State Supreme Court for setting up the Abbott system where money is seen as the solution to educational underachievement. Second, the NJEA, for slowing the growth of charter schools, E3’s panacea.

Well, they’re right: the hub of the problem with Newark’s public schools is the legacy of the Abbott decisions and the union’s powerful obstinacy. It’s not that simple, and in some ways it’s exactly that simple. Newark Mayor Cory Booker knows it too — he’s a cofounder of E3 — and it’s been widely reported that Corzine’s wooing him for Lieutenant Governor. What would be the impact of an reform-minded L.G. on a educational system mired in past political-correctness and outdated industrial labor models? Maybe nothing, but it’s fun to dream.