Scores Fall For New Jersey Students In Nation's Report Card

By Alan Wooten | The Center Square, The Center Square New Jersey

October 24, 2022

(The Center Square) – Evidence of low performance in schools during the COVID-19 era, when government officials kept children out of classrooms, is washed across The Nation’s Report Card.
New Jersey, which has pumped $1.8 billion more into education spending – to $9.9 billion – since 2018 under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, had lower scores in reading and math, respectively, for both fourth graders and eighth graders, the report said. Scores are a comparison of 2022 to 2019.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress began producing the report in 1969. Declines nationally have not been this significant in three decades. Hardest hit in the Garden State were students from the city.

New Jersey students at or above the proficiency level overall was 38%, slightly lower than 42% in 2019. The last time the Garden State was at such a low was 39% in 2003. Students at or above the basic level of proficiency is 67%, which is below 2019’s 72% and the 70% recorded in 2003.
The performance gap for Black students to whites is 28 points; for Hispanics to whites it is 22 points. The report said there was a 12-point performance deficit for boys compared to girls.
In fourth-grade reading, New Jersey’s score of 223 out of 500 possible was above the national 216 but hasn’t been that low since 2005. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia had larger decreases.

The rural areas increased by 4 points; suburban areas were down 5 points and city areas by 7.
Boys scores fell 7 points and girls by 2. The decreases, as broken down by ethnicity, included drops of 12 points for Blacks, 7 for whites and 3 for Hispanics; increases were 2 points each for Asians, and Asian/Pacific Islanders.

In eighth-grade reading, New Jersey’s score of 270 was 11 points higher than the national score, and a point lower than 2019. Five states and the District of Columbia had the same or better scores than three years earlier.

In rural areas, scores rose by 15 points. They were the same in suburban areas, and down 7 points in the cities.

Boys scores rose 3 points and girls fell by 3. The decreases, as broken down by ethnicity, included drops of 3 points for Hispanics; 2 points for Asian/Pacific Islanders; and 1 point each for Blacks, whites and Asians.

For fourth-grade mathematics, New Jersey’s score of 239 was just above the national 235 but hasn’t been that low since 2003. The Garden State was one of 43 with a decrease. Only 10 states had larger drops in points from three years earlier.

Rural scores were up 3 points; in the city scores, there was an 8-point decrease, and in suburban scores, the drop was 9 points.

Boys scores fell by 5 points and girls by 9. The decreases, as broken down by ethnicity, included drops of 13 points for Blacks, 8 points for Hispanics, and 5 points for whites. Asians rose by 1 point and Asian/Pacific Islander had no change.

For eighth-grade mathematics, New Jersey’s score of 281 was higher than the national 273, and again also the lowest since 2003. Every state and the District of Columbia had a decrease, and only Oklahoma (13), Delaware (12) and West Virginia (12) had larger points drops than did New Jersey.
Rural scores were up 12 points; in the city scores, there was a decrease of 8 points, and in suburban scores, the drop was 13 points.

Boys scores fell 10 points and girls by 12. The decreases, as broken down by ethnicity, included drops of 15 points for Blacks, 11 for whites, 11 for Asians, 9 for Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5 for Hispanics.

NAEP bills itself as “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.”

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