This paper highlights the utility of the "third wave" of school equity cases that began to take shape subsequent to funding cases. These cases challenged the adequacy of public education systems, as measured not only by funding, but by educational content and other factors. The cases attempted to create a concrete mandate for an adequate…

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) encourages New Jersey and other states to use their expanded roles in narrow ways. NCLB identifies state takeovers as one potential sanction for schools that fail to reach their adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets for five consecutive years.

This New Jersey edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on…

The College Outcomes Evaluation Program (COEP), intended to be a comprehensive assessment of higher education in New Jersey, focuses on outcomes in order to improve undergraduate education. After an introduction covering the national perspective, New Jersey's efforts, COEP, and rationale and principles, subcommittee reports summarize the content…

New Jersey requires an annual evaluation and classification of schools based on: development and implementation of an educational plan, achievement of statewide standards in basic skills, and compliance with state and federal laws and regulations. Guidelines for the evaluation criteria and procedures are given. Data are collected through the…

The New Jersey Assembly Education Committee studied the development and administration of the New Jersey Department of Education's skills testing program. A committee meeting received testimony about the program and reviewed correspondence. The committee has found that the academic standards of the state must be raised and that a high school…

The role of state agency regulation, oversight, and funding of programs at New Jersey's private, postsecondary trade schools was examined through meeting participation, review of existing regulations, and interviews with agency staff. Findings were as follows: (1) proprietary vocational schools play a large role in New Jersey's postsecondary…

The New Jersey Commission on Higher Education releases this report annually on systemwide accountability. The data are collected from the system's 9 state colleges and universities, 3 public research universities, 19 community colleges, and 25 private higher education institutions. The key findings of this year's report include: (1) full-time…

This book provides a brief historical review of outcomes assessment in higher education and a general guide to designing, implementing, and evaluating assessment programs. Chapter 1 provides several definitions of commonly used terms and a review of the major actors and the political context. It identifies factors contributing to the recent push…

This report explains how welfare reform in New Jersey has served as an occasion for attempts to restructure the relations between public agencies and private service providers, and that these attempts raise important questions about who will and ought to play a part in the state's welfare programs. The historical context for privatization has…

The Education Commission of the States (ECS) together with the American Association for Higher Education recently conducted five case studies of state-based approaches to assessment in undergraduate education in Colorado, Missouri, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Virginia. The case studies, in turn, are part of the Missouri Governor John Ashcroft's…

This guidebook presents a process to elicit and organize information about school district practices, proposes standards to judge the effectiveness of those practices, and provides a method for determining desired improvements. Following the introduction, section 2 contains a distillation of the research findings on school effectiveness along with…

This booklet contains the material used at a planning session of the Citizens Advisory Committee of the superintendent of schools held in conjunction with the district's Title III project entitled, "Building a Comprehensive Planning System Model with EPPBS." The purpose of the material is to provide the educational decisionmakers with…

The New Jersey Vocational Needs Assessment Project was designed to determine the needs of industry and business for those areas where public vocational education serves as the primary training agency. Information was obtained from school questionnaires and employer questionnaires and interviews. References to six critical issues were most…

In Robinson V. Cahill, the New Jersey Supreme Court directed the Legislature to define the Constitutional phrase, "thorough and efficient education," and to develop a system of financing the public schools that would ensure such an education to all New Jersey citizens. As a result of this decision, equal educational opportunity can…