, who first proposed the
New Jersey School Report Card
Governor Thomas Kean first broached the idea of school report cards in his 1988
State of the State address. He argued that "the more parents know, the more involved they can be. This is a way to arm them with that knowledge." The proposal initially faced strong opposition, and in the spring of 1988 some
superintendents refused to release their test score data to the state because they feared it would be used in the report cards. The schools eventually consented to release the data and no report cards were issued that year. In February 1989 Kean announced that report cards would be shipped for the first time that fall. In the mid 1990s, Governor
Christine Todd Whitman began making a drive for increased efficiency in education. At that point,
New Jersey had administrative costs per pupil of $1,700, the highest cost of any state in the nation. In the summer of 1995, the
New Jersey Legislature passed a bill enabling state aid to be withheld from schools that spent more than 30% on administrative costs and requiring the release of more financial data. However, the main focus has remained unchanged and their contents continue to be reported on by large local papers. ==Criticism==