This blog post is a spin-off of The Cartel. The Cartel is a documentary uncovering the corruption in the NJ education system. I thought I’d get right down to the facts: (WARNING: the following contains math)

I money really going to make children smarter?

For every school district there are multiple admin jobs, but lets say six. Virgina and NJ both have around 1,300,000 students. Virgina has 221 school districts, so about 5550 students per district. NJ has 649 districts, that’s only 2130 students per district! So they are paying for jobs that are not necessary.

So with six admin jobs per district, that counts to 3894 NJ jobs, 1326 VA jobs. So lets assume NJ is put under the same system as VA (250 districts b/c its slightly bigger). That would make NJ have 1500 jobs. So it looks like there are 2394 extra jobs. The amount of admin jobs in NJ that exceed $75000 is 3446, so the percentage of current NJ edu jobs that exceed $75000 is 88.5%. And 88.5% of 2394 is 2119. So lets recap: theoretically 2119 jobs not need that pay $75000+. Which is a minimum of $158,925,000 wasted.  (all number were found at either Neighborhood Scouts or NJ.gov)

And even with all of this money being used:

Spending can exceed $400,000 per classroom, and yet only 39 percent of the
state’s eighth-graders are proficient or advanced readers, and only 40 percent
of its eighth-graders are proficient or advanced in math. Of new high school
graduates attending the state’s community colleges, nearly 80 percent require
remediation. More than three quarters of New Jersey’s high schools have been
warned that they may be placed on the state’s list of failing schools. And the
problem is not one of inadequate funding: Some of the worst schools receive—and
squander—the most money.

(quote from  The Cartel)