NJ Education Report

The Patch has created a database of teachers’ salaries throughout New Jersey. Topping the list is Northern Valley Regional High School in Bergen County, where the average teacher salary is $90,228. Bergen, in fact, has the top 20 districts in terms of teacher pay. The lowest average is in  Milltown (Middlesex County), where the average teacher makes $45,076.

New Jersey School Boards Association reports that “Voters in seven of the 501 school districts holding elections across the state yesterday also faced ballot questions related to their schools. Four of those questions –including three related to additional school spending –were defeated, while three won voter approval.”

NJ Spotlight has the best coverage of the annual NJEA Convention, reporting record turn-outs in large part because of teachers’ concerns about the new data-driven teacher evaluations.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reviews NJ’s just-released NAEP scores and remarks that “New Jersey, like most states, is rethinking its public schools.”

From Asbury Park Press: “Ousted Superintendent Janine Caffrey will not be returning to the school district after she was denied emergency relief by an administrative law judge Thursday.”

Jersey City School Board update: “There was a near sweep in this year’s Jersey City school board race, with three of the four candidates backed by Mayor Steve Fulop edging out their competitors, according to preliminary results from county election officials.” (Jersey Journal)

NJ DOE’s  ill-considered decision to cap the number of students in the  Interdistrict Public School Choice Program is resulting in messes like this (Philadelphia Inquirer):

Last month, the Sterling School District in Camden County closed on a former YMCA building assessed at $5.4 million. The building, Superintendent Jack McCulley said, was purchased to become a center for the school’s growing specialized programs, which draw a large number of “school-choice” students – from sending districts whose schooling is subsidized by the state.
But the day McCulley signed the settlement contract on the building he got a letter from the state notifying him that school-choice funding was being capped for the 2014-15 school year. Of the 420 seats he requested, Sterling would get only 42.
“People we hired, people we’re anticipating employing, everybody will be gone – laid off; the school we just purchased . . . we’d have to turn around and sell if we can’t continue with growth expected to fill the building,” McCulley said.