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IN THIS ISSUE:

• New Jersey Ranks Fifth in the Country in Average Teacher Salary, First in Education Spending Per Student Among States
• New Jersey's Adequate Yearly Progress in 2004–2005
• Email Improving Newark Students' Reading and Writing Test Scores
• Assessment Seminar Available with National Education Expert
• State Board of Education Honors West Milford High School Senior
• New Jersey Department of Education Releases 2005 School Report Cards
• Newark Public Schools Classroom Literacy Levels Impacted by Weekly Email Letter Writing to Peer Classroom
• Hoboken Mayor Wants School Upgrades

• Free Student Workbooks for Preview 

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Average teacher salaries rose 2.4% in New Jersey from 2003–2004 to 2004–2005, up to $56,682, which kept New Jersey fifth nationwide. Only Connecticut, Washington, D.C., California, and Michigan remain ahead of New Jersey.

Spending per student rose 1.2% in New Jersey from 2003–2004 to 2004–2005. That was enough to prevent New Jersey from falling from to second nationwide, out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only Washington, D.C. continues to rank ahead of New Jersey.

Spending rose 4.4%, or 3.7% per student, on average nationwide.

For more rankings and data, see: http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/05rankings-update.pdf

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On December 14, 2005, Education Week released "Room to Maneuver," a special report on the progress of the No Child Left Behind Act. Only 61% of New Jersey schools showed adequate yearly progress in 2004–2005. That was a discouraging decrease from 72% in 2003–2004.

Ninety-four percent of New Jersey teachers were deemed highly qualified.

For this and other data, see: http://www.coloradoea.org/media/nclb_1214.pdf

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The New Jersey state standardized test scores from a Newark Public Schools fourth-grade class show strong indicators of significant reading and writing improvement through use of simple email letter writing with fellow classmates and a peer classroom in Italy. The fourth-grade class at Roseville Avenue Elementary School in Newark Public Schools used a protected and multi-lingual school email solution and global classroom network called ePALS Classroom Exchange for email letter writing exchanges twice a week with an ePALS peer classroom in Bologna, Italy. At the end of the school year, those students scored 72.4% on the New Jersey State ASK4 Language Arts Literacy Test, a 30-point higher score on the state standardized test than the previous year's fourth-grade class, which had been taught by the same teacher, using the same curriculum and goals.

Twice a week, the students were required to read and write proper email letters as part of the curriculum. Students became increasingly motivated to email their peers and gradually increasing the amount of reading and writing they normally would perform each week. Before and during the pilot, ePALS Classroom Exchange conducted several teacher-training workshops in Newark to demonstrate and provide examples on how ePALS SchoolMail could be easily integrated with literacy projects and lesson plans in the classroom. The Newark pilot also suggests students may be more motivated to do classroom assignments with a collaborative peer using email, than for the teacher with pencil and paper.

One of the Italian students, who had been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, started responding much better in class. His teacher attributed part of his improved response and class participation to the epals correspondence he received from the Newark students. Asperger's Syndrome is a Pervasive Developmental Disorder characterized by severe and sustained impairment in social interaction.

"The students learned to write a letter and a profile, which was then sent to the Italian classroom," said Newark teacher Mary Carille. "We then received individual pictures and profiles from all the Italian students as well as interesting reading materials on how the Christmas Holidays are celebrated in Bologna. Students studied volcanoes, collected photos of famous Italian cities, ruins, Mt. Etna, and corresponded in email letters on specific topics. They learned to create and send Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, even created a class Haiku poetry book, which they brought home to parents and sent electronically to Italy. Using email and connecting the students with a peer enabled more literacy skill building to occur and they were self-motivated knowing other students would be receiving their work."

"Email has many benefits for the learner and has become the new paper and pencil for the 21st Century Generation," said Sheila Gersh, Professional Development Liaison for Title IID Region 10, New York City Department of Education and Center for School Development, City College of New York. "When students use a safe and protected K–12 email solution to connect to school peers and teachers, they care about their grammar and spelling, and are inclined to use dictionaries and grammar aid tools which add an immediate and visual component to correcting their mistakes. As teachers try to apply ELA/Literacy standards across the curriculum, they need to begin to use email as a writing, reading and sharing tool."

For more information, go to: http://www.epalscorp.com/index.html

Or contact:

EPALS:
Tim DiScipio
Chairman & Co-Founder
tdiscipio@epalscorp.com
Tel.: 203-372-5008

Newark:

Stan Salagaj
Director
Newark Public Schools Office of Instruction Technology
ssalagaj@nps.k12.nj.us
Tel.: 973-733-8832

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Deborah Meier, a national education expert and founder of the Central Park East Secondary School in New York City, will discuss how to use assessments to help student performance during a workshop sponsored by the Department of Education's Northern Region and Passaic County Community College on Friday, March 17.

Limited seating is available for the workshop, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Passaic County Public Safety Academy in Wayne. The registration fee is $150. For additional information, please contact Meredith Coticchio at (973) 684-6126.

Meier's career in education spans four decades as a teacher, writer, and advocate for public education. She began her career as a kindergarten and head start teacher in several cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. Along the way, she has created and maintained several schools that serve low-income African-American and Latino students

In addition to the Northern Region workshops, the DOE's Central and Southern regions are hosting several professional development workshops throughout the year. The workshops are all intended to help educators with a variety of professional development issues.

A complete list is online here: http://education.state.nj.us/events/.

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The State Board of Education honored Sara Steele, a senior at West Milford High School in Passaic County.  Sara is an outstanding student who has achieved excellence in a variety of school and community activities.

Sara is ranked first in her class and maintains a GPA of 4.48.  She is also a literary arts magazine editor and a lead in her school's musical adaptation of "Footloose."

"Sara Steele's triumphs combine a strong academic record with a plethora of extra-curricular and community involvements that is a model for all students," said State Board of Education President Arnold G. Hyndman.  "Her ability to maintain high grades and balance her  involvements in other diverse areas are more than worthy of commendation and recognition by this body."

Sara served as a counselor at the Weis Ecology Center and participated in the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C.  Sara is a national Honor Society member. She has participated in West Milford's Beautification Day and a UPS Christmas Food Drive.

Each month during the school year, the State Board of Education honors a student or group of students from a county in New Jersey to recognize academic excellence.  In January, the State Board of Education recognized Lionel Zhang, a fifth-grade student at the Lawrence Intermediate School in Mercer County.

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The New Jersey Department of Education has released the 2005 School Report Cards, which contain detailed statistical profiles of all public schools in the state.  The annual reports enable members of the public to gauge their local schools' educational progress.

"The Legislature established the School Report Card process so that parents and interested citizens can review statistics about their local schools and evaluate whether the schools are providing their students with a high-quality education in a cost-effective way," said acting Commissioner of Education Lucille E. Davy.

The reports also show how well each school is doing in meeting the requirements of the Core Curriculum Content Standards and the state's goal of having all children able to read by the end of third grade.

Report cards are produced for all elementary and secondary schools, as well as vocational schools, special education schools, charter schools, and Special Services School Districts.

The information is arranged under five categories—school environment, student information, student performance indicators, staff information, and district/charter financial information.  Each year, the department makes adjustments to the data fields to accommodate new federal mandates or to clarify the information that is presented in the report.  The 2005 version includes two years of NJASK 3 test results and the first year of NJASK 4 science results.

"While the report card is primarily a tool for each community to use in its own evaluation of its own schools' performance, the state-level comparisons included in the various report card fields do allow us to identify some statewide trends," acting Commissioner Davy said. 

The 2005 data indicate that:

• There are almost 25,000 more students in New Jersey's public schools than there were in the 2002–2003 school year, and almost 78,000 more students than there were five years ago.  The number of classroom teachers grew from about 98,000 to 109,800 in that same five-year period.
• There have been significant increases in the number of Hispanic students, from 201,350 in 2000–2001, to 227,145 in 2002–2003, to 246,174 last year, for a total increase of almost 45,000 students in the past five years.  "This means that there is an even greater demand for quality bi-lingual and ESL programs in our state, in our suburban schools as well," said acting Commissioner Davy.
• Internet connections for all rooms in the school have steadily risen to an average of 97.9% in 2004–2005 and the number of students per computer available for supervised instruction has decreased to 3.9.
• Statewide mobility and dropout rates have been holding steady on a state level, but parents, community members and educators are encouraged to look at the number for each school because there are wide variations among districts in these statistics that show up at the school and district levels.
• The graduation rate has risen to 91.3 percent for 2004–2005, but it is also clear that we are holding steady on the number of students who graduated via the Special Review Assessment at between 14 and 15 percent.  New Jersey's SAT participation and performance have remained steady and Advanced Placement participation is holding around 15 percent.
• The median salary for teachers in 2004–2005 is $52,583 up from $51,809 in 2003–2004 while administrators' median salary is $102,755 up from $99,483 in 2003–2004.  However, administrative and teacher salaries and benefits calculated as a percentage of a district's total comparative expenditures have held steady for the past three years at 56% for teacher salaries and benefits and 9% for administrator salaries and benefits.

These reports are the eleventh to be produced under the 1995 state law that standardizes much of the information and requires its annual distribution.  They also represent the 15th time New Jersey has issued a report on its public schools, since the first report cards were distributed in 1989.

The school report card is on the department's Web site at http://education.state.nj.us/rc/

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The New Jersey state standardized test scores from a Newark Public Schools fourth-grade class show strong indicators of significant reading and writing improvement through use of simple email letter writing with fellow classmates and a peer classroom in Italy. The fourth-grade class used a protected and multi-lingual school email solution and global classroom network called ePALS Classroom Exchange.

For complete article, see: http://www.qeddata.com/myaccount/ViewArticle.aspx?Id=4300 (subscription required)

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Mayor David Roberts unveiled his new education initiative last week. It includes negotiating a consulting contract with the state's former commissioner of education. The mayor wants him to address the tough challenges facing the district.

Over the past decade, Hoboken has become one of the most desirable cities in New Jersey to live and work in, but many believe that its urban school district, with its below-average test scores fails to keep young families here. The situation has improved in the last ten years due to the choices allowed by the two charter schools and by improvements in the six regular schools. However, some feel there is a lot of work still to do.

See article at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16105749&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=523585&rfi=6  
Queue, Inc. offers previews of its New Jersey test preparation workbooks to public schools.  Queue publishes test prep books in Language Arts Literacy, Mathematics, Reading Comprehension, and Composition for Grades 3–high school, as well as Practice Tests in Math and Language Arts Literacy.
 
Queue also offers Math and Reading workbooks for grades 1 and 2, and publishes a wide variety of other workbooks in Literature, Science, History, Government, Health, and ESL.  Samples of student workbooks are available for preview.
 
 
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