A new report out from the Center for American Progress grades each state on 8 categories relevant to educational reform. Here’s N.J.’s report card:
School Management C
Finance D
Staffing: Hiring & Evaluation B
Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers A
Data D
Pipeline to Postsecondary D
Technology D

From our comments: CAP says we do an “average” job managing schools “in a way that encourages thoughtful innovation, but have “mediocre academic standards. We aced “Removing Ineffective Teachers”: only “70% of principals say that teacher unions or associations are a barrier to the removal of ineffective teachers.” We got D’s in Finance (we don’t have a performance pay program for teachers), Data (we don’t report college remediation data and we don’t match teachers to students), Pipeline to Postsecondary (we have a low percentage of dual-enrollment programs and not enough work-based internships), and Technology (no virtual schools and no computer-based assessments. But we do play well with others.