New Jersey school board elections, 2020

Main article: School board elections, 2020

Elections

Ballotpedia provides in-depth coverage of school board elections in America's largest school districts by enrollment. In addition to the 200 largest school districts in the nation, Ballotpedia covers the additional school districts that overlap with the 100 largest cities by population in the United States.

2020 New Jersey School Board Elections
District	Primary	General Election	General Runoff Election	Regular term length	Seats up for election	Total board seats	2016-17 enrollment
Newark Public Schools	N/A	5/12/2020	N/A	3	3	9	40,514
Jersey City Public Schools	N/A	11/3/2020	N/A	3	3	9	29,659

Academic performance

See also: Public education in New Jersey

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Education terms
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NAEP scores

See also: NAEP scores by state

The National Center for Education Statistics provides state-by-state data on student achievement levels in mathematics and reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The chart below presents the percentage of fourth and eighth grade students that scored at or above proficient in reading and math during school year 2012-2013. Compared to three neighboring states (Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania), New Jersey had the highest percentage of students scoring at or above proficient in all categories.

Percent of students scoring at or above proficient, 2012-2013
	Math - Grade 4	Math - Grade 8	Reading - Grade 4	Reading - Grade 8
New Jersey	49%	49%	42%	46%
Delaware	42%	33%	38%	33%
New York	40%	32%	37%	35%
Pennsylvania	44%	42%	40%	42%
United States	41%	34%	34%	34%
Source: United States Department of Education, ED Data Express, "State Tables"

Graduation, ACT and SAT scores

See also: Graduation rates by groups in state and ACT and SAT scores in the United States

The following table shows the graduation rates and average composite ACT and SAT scores for New Jersey and surrounding states during the 2012-2013 school year. All statements made in this section refer to that school year.

In the United States, public schools reported graduation rates that averaged to about 81.4 percent. About 54 percent of all students in the country took the ACT, while 50 percent reported taking the SAT. The average national composite scores for those tests were 20.9 out of a possible 36 for the ACT, and 1498 out of a possible 2400 for the SAT.

New Jersey schools reported a graduation rate of 87.5 percent during the 2012-2013 school year, highest among its neighboring states.

In New Jersey, more students took the SAT than the ACT in 2013, earning an average SAT score of 1521.

Comparison table for graduation rates and test scores, 2012-2013
State	Graduation rate, 2013		Average ACT composite, 2013		Average SAT composite, 2013
	Percent	Quintile ranking**	Score	Participation rate	Score	Participation rate
New Jersey	87.5%	First	23	23%	1521	78%
Delaware	80.4%	Fourth	22.9	15%	1351	100%
New York	76.8%	Fourth	23.4	26%	1463	76%
Pennsylvania	85.5%	Second	22.7	18%	1480	71%
United States	81.4%		20.9	54%	1498	50%
**Graduation rates for states in the first quintile ranked in the top 20 percent nationally. Similarly, graduation rates for states in the fifth quintile ranked in the bottom 20 percent nationally. Sources: United States Department of Education, "ED Data Express" ACT.org, "2013 ACT National and State Scores" The Commonwealth Foundation, "SAT scores by state, 2013"

Dropout rate

See also: Public high school dropout rates by state for a full comparison of dropout rates by group in all states

The high school event dropout rate indicates the proportion of students who were enrolled at some time during the school year and were expected to be enrolled in grades nine through 12 in the following school year but were not enrolled by October 1 of the following school year. Students who have graduated, transferred to another school, died, moved to another country, or who are out of school due to illness are not considered dropouts. The average public high school event dropout rate for the United States remained constant at 3.3 percent for both school year 2010–2011 and school year 2011–2012. The event dropout rate for New Jersey was lower than the national average at 1.4 percent in the 2010-2011 school year, and 1.4 percent in the 2011-2012 school year.

Pivot Counties

Pivot Counties

See also: Pivot Counties by state

Two of 21 New Jersey counties—9.5 percent—are Pivot Counties. Pivot Counties are counties that voted for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012 and for Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Altogether, the nation had 206 Pivot Counties, with most being concentrated in upper midwestern and northeastern states.

Counties won by Trump in 2016 and Obama in 2012 and 2008
County	Trump margin of victory in 2016	Obama margin of victory in 2012	Obama margin of victory in 2008
Gloucester County, New Jersey	0.48%	10.77%	12.16%
Salem County, New Jersey	15.00%	1.31%	3.92%

In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton (D) won New Jersey with 55.5 percent of the vote. Donald Trump (R) received 41.4 percent. In presidential elections between 1900 and 2016, New Jersey voted Democratic 46.67 percent of the time and Republican 53.33 percent of the time. In the five presidential elections between 2000 and 2016, New Jersey voted Democratic all five times.

Additional elections

See also: New Jersey elections, 2020

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See also

New Jersey	School Boards	News and Analysis
Public education in New Jersey List of school districts in New Jersey	School board elections, 2020 School board elections, 2019 New Jersey school board elections, 2019	Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey

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