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The New Jersey School Report Card is an annual report produced each year by the New Jersey Department of Education for all school districts and schools in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The current School Report Card presents thirty-five fields of information for each school in the following categories: school environment, students, student performance indicators, staff, and district finances, however initially the cards provided far less information. The report cards were first proposed in 1988 by Governor Thomas Kean and mailed out in 1989. Although various types of school report cards had been released in California, Illinois, and Virginia, New Jersey was the first to send the reports home to parents and make them available to all taxpayers.〔(Educators Belittle New Jersey's 'Report Cards' on Schools ) Robert Hanley. New York Times. November 27, 1989.〕 In 1995 the New Jersey legislature passed a law expanding the scope of the report cards to include more financial matters and the withholding of state aid to inefficient schools. This was part of Governor Christine Todd Whitman’s push to decrease administrative costs in education. The report cards are still issued, and their annual release attracts attention in large papers such as the New York Times. ==History== Governor Thomas Kean first broached the idea of school report cards in his 1988 State of the State address. He argued that "the more parents know, the more involved they can be. This is a way to arm them with that knowledge."〔(Jersey Will Send Home Report Cards on Schools ) AP via ''The New York Times''. February 19, 1989.〕 The proposal initially faced strong opposition, and in the spring of 1988 some superintendents refused to release their test score data to the state because they feared it would be used in the report cards.〔(Schools Withhold Data From New Jersey Chief ) By Lisa Jennings. ''Education Week''. May 11, 1988.〕 The schools eventually consented to release the data and no report cards were issued that year. In February 1989 Kean announced that report cards would be shipped for the first time that fall.〔 They were released as planned that November. The first report cards did not offer a comparison or ranking of schools, and the version sent home to parents only included information about their individual school and the statewide averages.〔 The released information included SAT and standardized test scores, student-teacher ratios, hours of instruction, attendance rates, and the average cost per pupil.〔 Saul Cooperson, then the New Jersey State Education Commissioner, insisted that the point of the reports was not to rank districts or make comparisons between them, however many reporters did just that. One statistic that received a large amount of coverage was that Newark spent $1,237 more per student than Sparta, but still had SAT scores that were 278 points lower on average.〔 Throughout the early 1990s the reports continued to be published and remained a popular subject for papers like ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' and ''The New York Times''. Additional statistics began to be tracked, including average teacher salaries and state and federal aid.〔(Comparing the Districts: The ’95 High School Reports ) By Neil Macfarquhar. New York Times. December 10, 1995.〕 In the mid 1990s, Governor Christine Todd Whitman began making a drive for increased efficiency in education. At that point, New Jersey had administrative costs per pupil of $1,700, the highest cost of any state in the nation.〔(New Jersey Daily Briefing: Report Cards for Administrators ) Terry Pristin. New York Times. August 24, 1995.〕 In the summer of 1995 the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill enabling state aid to be withheld from schools that spent more than 30% on administrative costs and requiring the release of more financial data.〔 The bill was signed into law by Governor Whitman on August 23, 1995.〔 The report cards are still released annually. Their contents have evolved over the years, such as the addition of Advanced Placement Program (AP) data in 2002. However, the main focus has remained unchanged and their contents continue to be reported on by large local papers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Jersey School Report Card」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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