Data, Data, Data? Dissecting & Debunking NJDOE’s State of the Schools Message « School Finance 101

Data, Data, Data? Dissecting & Debunking NJDOE’s State of the Schools Message « School Finance 101:

Data, Data, Data? Dissecting & Debunking NJDOE’s State of the Schools Message

by schoolfinance101

Time again for an NJ State of the Schools Address, as reported HERE in NJ Spotlight (with absolutely no critical question/reporting whatsoever! More or less spoon fed regurgitation).
As I’ve written a number of times on this blog, state officials in New Jersey have decided on specific marketing/messaging plan in order to support current policy initiatives. Those policy initiatives involve:

1. expanding NJDOE authority to impose desired “reforms” (charter/management takeover, staff replacement, etc.) on specific schools otherwise not under their direct authority.
2. cutting funding from higher poverty, higher need districts and shifting it toward lower poverty, lower need ones.
3. expanding charter schooling and promoting other  “innovations” in high poverty concentration schools.

The supposed impetus for these reforms is that New Jersey faces a very large achievement gap between low