John Mooney at NJ Spotlight profiles the charter school that NJ Education Commissioenr Bret Schundler started, the Golden Door in Jersey City. While it has had various growing pains,

Still, Golden Door has showed the agility and adaptability that is one of the hallmarks of charters. Without the constraints —or the unions—of the traditional schools, it employs a merit pay system for its teachers. In another hallmark of charters, parents and students describe the school as an intimate and warm place buffered from the crime and poverty of this city of 240,000 people.

Also at NJ Spotlight, I look at the the politics of the new national Common Core standards in the context of NJ’s math wars.