Outlook on Education

There are more than 1,100,000 students enrolled in the 2,300 public elementary, middle, junior high, and high schools in New Jersey. There are fewer than 200,000 students enrolled in the 878 private and parochial schools in New Jersey. New Jersey's School Facilities and Enrollment. The future of our state, and nation, rests with public education. Is that future in good hands?

The Global Marketplace
"The scientific and technological skills of a nation's workers are a crucial component of its economic competitiveness. The youth of today will be tomorrow's workers and will be competing in the global marketplace..." (from The Condition of Education, 1996).

Before we compare the results of New Jersey's public education system to other states, we must compare the United States to our global competitors.

Eighth-grade students (13 year olds) were tested in reading, mathematics, and science in the second International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) performed in 1991. The results of that world-wide testing effort were published by the U.S. Department of Education in The Condition of Education, 1996, June 1996. We have not reported the reading scores, since comparisons would span different languages, nor included the scores from nations whose participation was insufficient to yield valid statistical results. However, we have looked at the scores of fourteen nations (including 14 republics of the former Soviet Union counted as one nation) that had a high level of participation in this testing. On the mathematics test, students from the United States scored 13th (second from last), 18 percentage points below students from Korea and Taiwan (the countries with the highest scores).

On the science test, the students from the United States scored 12th (third from last), 11 percentage points below Korean students (the country with the highest score).

So, as we compare New Jersey to students in other states, we should keep in mind that the United States is trailing behind most of the industrialized world in our race to the global marketplace of the future.

Versus the Other States
In 1992 and 1994, New Jersey's fourth graders participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress along with 38 other states. These scores are reported in the 1995 Digest of Education Statistics published by the U.S. Department of Education. This report shows New Jersey's fourth graders ranked 12th out of 39 states in reading and tied with 4 other states for 5th place in overall mathematics. New Jersey's eighth graders did not do as well, taking 10th place out of the 35 states that participated in the mathematics testing.

By the time they finish high school, New Jersey's students have fallen further behind. In the 11th or 12th grade, most college-bound students in New Jersey take the SAT test. This test is administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and provides the most reliable way to compare students across states and across time periods. (In 1994 the old Scholastic Aptitude Test was renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test. Today, the mathematics section contains some "fill-in-the-blank" questions and calculators are allowed, the verbal section no longer contains questions on antonyms, and an extra half hour is allowed for the test. We have not reported scores for the 1995-96 school year due to the inability to compare them to prior years.) In 1993-94, on the verbal section of the SAT, New Jersey students ranked 40th out of the 50 states. On the math section of the SAT, New Jersey students ranked 35th out of the 50 states. This puts New Jersey's students in, or near, the bottom quartile of the nation's SAT scores. Over the past decade, New Jersey students have consistently performed below the United States averages on both sections of the SAT.

In 1993-94, the students from the top state (Utah) averaged 509 on the verbal section, while New Jersey students averaged 418. The students from the top state (Iowa) averaged 574 on the math section, while New Jersey students averaged 475. In both cases, New Jersey students were almost 100 points (out of 800 total) below the leaders.

Public School Spending
Spending is one area where New Jersey is top-ranked: we lead the Nation in dollars spent per student for elementary and secondary education. The numbers for 1991, which were finally published in late 1995, show a per student cost of $9,321 which is 72% higher than the national average of $5,421. The spread between New Jersey spending and the national average has been growing, so it is safe to say that we are now spending well over $10,000 per student per year on average. Many districts are spending over $12,000 per student per year.

The NJFPC Viewpoint
The NJFPC believes that we are not getting our money's worth. The United States trails most of the industrialized world in virtually all quantifiable measures of educational achievement, and New Jersey trails most of the United States. Yet New Jersey leads the Nation in spending per student. Between 1980 and 1991 per-pupil expenses increased from $3,254 to $9,321; yet, during the same period, school enrollment decreased by 8%.

If nothing else, the data demonstrates that educational performance does not result from educational spending. The average per student expenditure among the states with the top three scores on the verbal section of the SAT (1993-94) was $4,340 - less than half of what was spent in New Jersey. Yet, our students were unable to put New Jersey among the top thirty states -- much less the top three.

Part of the reason that increased spending does not lead to increased performance is that the dollars do not make it to the classroom. In 1991 the average classroom teacher in New Jersey had a $40,000 salary. This is higher that the national average, but so is the cost of living in New Jersey. Recognize that over $185,000 was spent to educate the 20 children in this teacher's classroom (an average of $9,321 was spent per student in 1991). The real problem in the schools is that only $40,000 went to pay the teacher, while $145,000 went somewhere else.

So why have educational expenses outpaced educational performance? Why do expenses go up while enrollment goes down? What happens to the 80% of the budget that does not go to the classroom teacher? The following quote from Dennis Testa, President of the 144,000 member New Jersey Teacher's Association may shed some light on the mystery ...

"The continuing tragedy of children's lives forces us to rethink, from the ground up, what we call 'school'. The answer lies in broadening the school's role. An institution's resources must match its responsibilities. For openers, this means taking the social and health services scattered in agencies throughout the city and placing them in the school, all under one roof. Imagine: a medical clinic, a housing office, an employment center, a mini police station, and family services right in the school." (from The Record, March 13, 1994)

We do not want to trivialize the tragic circumstances surrounding some children's lives, but dealing with these circumstances just is not the principal role of the public school. Our children are in school to learn reading, writing, science, math, history, and geography. With the world's store of knowledge growing at exponential rates, this is no small task that we have entrusted to our schools. The NJFPC believes that our public schools, and the New Jersey Teacher's Association, should be 100% concerned with the continuing tragedy of New Jersey's dismal academic performance relative to the rest of our nation and the rest of the world. They should be imagining New Jersey students leading the world in math and science instead of imagining how they can get the police stations, hospitals, employment centers, and housing offices on campus.