The NJ Board of Education’s Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force has started meeting and will soon hold public hearings. The Task Force comprises 10 members, including college professors, superintendents, and the Senior Vice President and Chair of Policy Evaluation and Research for Educational Testing Service. From the press release:

In 2010, black students in the fourth grade statewide scored approximately 30 percentage points lower on NJASK in language arts and mathematics than white students. The gap was slightly larger between economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged students on the grade four language arts NJASK, while the gap in math was approximately 25 percentage points.