Predominantly White school districts get about $23 billion more funding per year than predominantly non-White districts, and New Jersey is suffering because of this, according to a study released by WalletHub.
In order to determine which areas have the most racial equality in education, WalletHub compared the 50 states across six key metrics, examining an area’s racial makeup in terms of high school and college degrees, test scores and graduation rates, among other factors.
New Jersey ranked the 7th worst district for racial equality, including:
44th Overall
21st Share of adults with at least a high school degree
21st Public high school graduation rate
26th Standardized test scores
37th Mean SAT score
44th Average ACT score
46th Share of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree
New Jersey has 546 public school districts across 21 counties. In 2023, a Superior Court judge ruled that NJ has systematically failed to address the problem of racial segregation that exists in its public schools. This has nothing to do with official policy, since Brown v. Board of Education desegregated schools back in 1954, but is more due to the state’s residency laws which, according to the suit, say that New Jersey’s wealthy and poor districts have discrepancies due to assigning schools based on a student’s ZIP code: nearly 60% of Latino students in New Jersey attend schools with more than 80% non-White students, and 66% of Black students attend schools where more than 75% of students are non-White.
New Jersey has been trying to make strides over the past few decades. New Jersey’s School Funding Reform Act was established in 2008 after a series of court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s that found the state’s school funding system discriminated against lower income urban districts and favored wealthier suburban ones.
Inside the classroom, NJ has guidelines for addressing educational equity and critical race theory. The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights and the New Jersey Department of Education also have a plan for addressing bias in schools, as set forth in the New Jersey Youth Bias Task Force. The purpose is to prevent, intervene in and respond to bias in order to create a culture of equity and inclusion. The Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University in Newark was established in 2000 to look into the challenges of improving the quality of life in urban communities across the state, particularly those in Essex County.
The Best States for Racial Equality in Education in the U.S., according to Wallet Hub, are:
1. New Mexico
2. West Virginia
3. Wyoming
4. Oregon
5. Vermont
6. Maine
7. Kentucky
8. Hawaii
9. Oklahoma
10. Texas
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