In high poverty areas of New Jersey, public school students are often exposed to less experienced teachers, oversized classes, personal safety issues, inferior infrastructures, limited curriculum and technology, lack of textbooks to bring home, and cancelled classes due to heating/cooling system breakdowns. [Source: ASPA Times, Feb. 2018]

 

The result? Many students receive a sub-par public education.

 

• The majority of Tri-County students are from Paterson in Passaic County. The Paterson Public School District ranks in the lowest 10% of all of New Jersey’s 611 school districts (#556), with 5 of its high schools ranking in the bottom 5%. [Source: School Digger, July 2018]

 

• 80% of all fourth graders from low-income families in the US are reading below proficiency levels. Children who are proficient in reading by the end of third grade are more likely to graduate from high school and have higher earnings as adults. [Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation, January 2014]

 

• 1 of every 4 high school students in the US drops out each year, and the numbers are higher for Latino and African American students. [Source: Education Week, May 2013]

 

• High school dropouts are 3 times more likely to be unemployed, and more than twice as likely to live in poverty as high school graduates. [Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2014]

 

 

Unaffordable Private Schools

 

• It is very difficult for Tri-County scholarship families to pay private school tuition; their average household income for a family of 4 is $30,000. The cost of private high schools that many of our scholarship recipients attend averages between $6,000 and $12,000.

 

• Low-income children who attend private school are almost four times as likely to go to college. [Source: U.S. Department of Education’s Private Schools: A Brief Portrait. 2002]

 

• Students who attend private school in eighth grade are twice as likely as to have completed a bachelor’s degree or higher by their mid-twenties (52% versus 26%) than their peers in public school. [Source: U.S. Department of Education’s Private Schools: A Brief Portrait. 2002]

 

• Private school students score higher on standardized tests and are more likely to graduate high school than their public school counterparts. [Source: U.S. Department of Education’s Private Schools: A Brief Portrait. 2002]