NJ Spotlight--Stress Testing Pension System to Help Determine — and Maintain — Fiscal Health
Public-employee pension system comprises numerous funds whose health needs to be ascertained and made public on state website
As his tenure comes to an end, Gov. Chris Christie’s legacy on the pension issue is widely considered to be a mix of failures and success. He’s dug the pension hole deeper by never fully funding the state’s annual payments, but he has also worked with lawmakers on several major reforms, including dedicating state Lottery revenues to the pension system and forcing public workers to contribute more to their own retirements.
John Reitmeyer | December 6, 2017
Education Week--Global Reading Scores Are Rising, But Not for U.S. Students
The good news from the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study is that basic literacy is at an all-time high worldwide and a majority of countries have seen rising reading achievement in the last decade.
The bad news is that students in the United States are bucking the trend.
While U.S. 4th graders performed at an average score of 549, above the average of the 58 education systems participating in PIRLS in 2016, that score was 7 scale points lower than the last test in 2011—basically the same as they did in 2006.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/12/05/global-reading-scores-are-rising-but-not.html
Sarah D. Sparks| December 5, 2017
NJ Spotlight-- Op-Ed: Collaboration Benefiting Newark Schoolchildren
As Newark transitions back to local control, an exciting time is made all the more so by the burgeoning collaboration between charter and traditional district schools
Evidence is growing that, when it comes to making sure all children have the high-quality education needed to reach their full potential, the word “and” will take us a lot further than the word “or.”
In school districts across New Jersey and especially in Newark, where my experience is focused, children are benefitting from a collaborative approach that emphasizes what can be accomplished together by traditional public schools and charter public schools. That is as opposed to defining the educational options as traditional public schools or charter public schools.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/12/05/op-ed-collaboration-benefitting-newark-schoolchildren/
Michele Mason | December 6, 2017