The Promising Practices study analyzes the practices and activities that bolstered student learning and their positive effect on student performance in ELA and mathematics on the New Jersey State Learning Assessments (NJSLA). The study will explore how individual schools successfully served all students’ needs; with special attention paid to practices that lead to growth in student groups often understood to underperform.

The research team identified positive outlier schools based on the Department’s School Performance Reports, student demographic/testing data, and NCES socioeconomic files. Using statistical models that compared predicted and actual performance, the research team selected a sample of schools blindly (i.e., without school names identified) that exceeded expected student learning outcomes for all students and/or for some disaggregated groups of students (i.e., English learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, etc.). The team selected schools based on overall, disaggregated group-specific, and post-COVID improvements in student learning outcomes, ensuring representation in every county of the state, and at various levels of racial/ethnic diversity and need.

After the quantitative analysis, the Rutgers research team will focus on 52 New Jersey schools from 47 LEAs statewide with identified positive learning outcomes when comparing pre- to post-pandemic performance in ELA and mathematics.

The Department and the Rutgers research team will work with the identified LEAs to uncover innovative, promising practices that significantly impact students’ academic performance. Once the promising practices are determined, the strategies will be disseminated throughout the state via relevant presentations, reports, and convenings.