Schools around the country have begun to show measurable progress in closing achievement gaps, according to evidence from a growing range of sources. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that in New Jersey this progress is much more limited, and it is young African-Americans who seem to be losing out the most.
Despite an influx of new funding to New Jersey’s poorest urban school districts following the state Supreme Court’s Abbott rulings, student achievement levels remain mostly flat at the lower end of the spectrum.
The percentage of black eighth-graders who scored above “basic” in reading actually declined, from 62 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2009 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.