NY Education School Info:
New York City (NYC) is the hub of the New York tri-State area, which covers 6,720 square miles in three states and contains a population of about 18.5 million people – by far the largest urban concentration in the United States.
The City itself has over 8 million inhabitants, and consists of five boroughs: Manhattan, with its iconic skyline, is the best known, and Brooklyn, with 2.5 million inhabitants, is the most populous. Some transferees to NYC with school-age children may choose to commute from the Northern suburbs of New York or SW Connecticut, or from Northern New Jersey (see separate reports) where family housing and good quality public schools can be found in affordable areas: but the City’s vast public school system, run directly by the Mayor, does offer good options, especially at the K-5 level in the higher-rent parts of the city – in Manhattan and Brooklyn in particular.
FEDERAL:
Schools are mainly funded at the state and City levels, but the Federal Government allocates some tax-payer money for public education and runs programs designed to measure and improve standards nationally. This includes the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) system, the No Child Left Behind legislation and the current government’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Fund.
STATE:
The New York State Education Department (NYSED), located in Albany, through its P-12 Education Division, has oversight of public schools throughout the state, including NYC: It lays down standards and timing of State examinations in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math at grades 3 through 8, in Science at grades 4 and 8, and in five subjects prior to High School graduation (Regents Exams). It also issues annual report cards for every school – NYC included. These include detailed demographic, classroom and academic data. The NYSED is headed by a Commissioner appointed by a 17-member Board of Regents, the latter being elected for 5-year terms by the legislature. In the 2008-09 school year New York was first in the nation for expenditure per student, at $20,645.
CITY:
Administratively, NYC Public Schools are independent of the state: The NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) is part of the governance of the City and reports directly to the Mayor, who determines its budget and appoints the Schools Chancellor. There are more than a million students, of whom 85% are from “minorities” – i.e. Hispanic, African American and Asian. A large proportion of these are eligible for free lunch at school and nearly half speak a language other than English at home. In addition to the State report cards, the City issues its own annual Progress Report for every school within its jurisdiction. Generally, the schools in the system do not match the performance of those in the more affluent suburbs, but there are exceptions. International assignees may prefer to send their K-5 children to NYC public schools because they are more diverse and “real life” than private alternatives; and some of them are excellent by any standards.
There are 832 Elementary schools, 538 Middle schools and 473 High schools in the 5 NYC Boroughs. These are organized in 31 geographical school districts, of which 6 are in Manhattan, and 12 in Brooklyn.
NJ Education School info:
Many transferees choose to live in the New Jersey part of the tri-State area on the west side of the Hudson River, either to avoid the real estate costs and school challenges of living in the city, in which case they commute daily into it; or because their work is actually located in Northern New Jersey. There are six New Jersey counties that are within commuting range of NYC: In distance from NYC, these are: Bergen, Hudson, Union, Morris, Essex and Somerset Counties. Together they have a combined population of about 3.75 million, making the area one of the more densely populated in America. They all have rail access to NYC (Penn Station) via New Jersey Transit, and by road via the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways, with commuting times varying from under an hour to about an hour and a half. Of these, Hudson County, which sits across the river from Manhattan, and which includes the urban centers of Jersey City and Hoboken, is best suited to singles and couples without school-age children. It has direct access to the NYC subway system via the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) light rail. Thelargest concentration of good quality public schools can be found in a relatively compact area further south, near the borders of Essex, Morris, Union and Somerset Counties.
FEDERAL:
Schools are mainly funded at the state and District levels, but the Federal Government allocates some tax-payer money for public education and runs programs designed to measure and improve standards nationally. This includes the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) system, the No Child left Behind legislation and the current government’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Fund.
STATE:
The State of New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE), located in Trenton, has oversight of public schools throughout the state and conducts annual Assessment of Skills and Knowledge tests (NJ ASK) for every grade from 3 through 8, and the High School Proficiency Assessment (NJ HSPA) tests at Grade 11. It also issues annual report cards: These have demographic, classroom and academic data for every school within each district. The NJDOE is headed by a Commissioner appointed by the Governor, who also acts as secretary of the 13-member State Board of Education, the latter being appointed for 6-year terms by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the New Jersey State Senate. At $18,874, the state was fourth in the nation for expenditure per student in the 2008-09 school year.
COUNTY & DISTRICT:
The NJDOE coordinates with the school districts by way of County Offices of Education (COEs), which are internal administrative units, headed by County Superintendants of Schools, that are not part of county governance, and do not have public-access web sites. The primary focus for school governance lies with the school districts, of which there are 188 in the six counties under review. In every case the school district boundaries coincide with local jurisdictional boundaries which, in New Jersey, can be Boroughs, Townships, Cities, Towns or Villages, the last two being quite rare. Some districs are very small, and some large, but most have schools at the Elementary, Middle and High levels, and are governed by elected boards and appointed District Superintendents. They rely on local property taxes for a large part of their operating revenue.
By Ocean 2021.
