John Mooney

Moving New Jersey’s school board elections to November was expected to raise the stakes of these historically sleepy races, but at least in this first year, the money didn’t live up to expectations.

A proposal to build up to five new “renaissance schools” in Camden under the fledgling Urban Hope Act passed a key hurdle early yesterday morning as the Camden school board gave the go-ahead to the controversial plan.

After a year of negotiations and three weeks of sometimes-brutal internal debate, Newark public school teachers and other staff ratified a historic labor agreement yesterday that will reshape pay and many rules for New Jersey’s largest school district.

It’s only a trickle so far, with most New Jersey schools just beginning to reopen this week, but Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath will likely mean a sizable number of children displaced not just from their homes but from their schools.

Ever since Gov. Chris Christie in late 2010 imposed tight limits on school superintendent pay, there was the presumption that this issue would ultimately have to be decided in the courts.

Does a child attending a low-performing New Jersey school district -- arguably the state’s lowest-performing district -- have a constitutional right to pursue a better education elsewhere?

The Foundation for Newark’s Future, the organization created to distribute Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Newark schools, hasn't exactly set the world ablaze.

It is touted as a historic agreement, one that will remake how Newark teachers are judged and paid -- one that may even serve as a model for other school districts around the country.

Two years in the making — two very public years, thanks to Facebook — and the Newark teachers union has reached a preliminary agreement with the Christie administration for a new contract that will include bonus pay and an unprecedented role for teachers to police and evaluate their peers.

It’s a lesson that kids learn at a very early age: start every day with a good breakfast.

It’s becoming an annual “State of the Schools” address, with the New Jersey's education commissioner and top lieutenants exhaustively outline the administration’s plans and priorities for the coming year.

While the presidential election in November is getting all the headlines, another landmark vote will be taking place on November 6 that is struggling to grab people's attention.

New Jersey’s plans for having a statewide teacher evaluation system in place by 2013-2014 goes full throttle this year, with every school district in the state being required to start putting the key pieces in place.

After more than 130 years in Newark’s Central Ward, the Eighteenth Avenue School didn't open its doors to new and returning students on Thursday.

A year ago, the Wilson Avenue School in Newark was the poster child for many of New Jersey's city schools -- after it was socked by the winds and rains of Hurricane Irene and forced to close for four months before students could return.

As the Christie administration considers its options for how to improve the lowest of the state’s low-performing schools, it will be leaning heavily on a group out of Washington, D.C., that is finding itself more and more in the education limelight.

With the signing yesterday of New Jersey’s new teacher tenure law, there was the expected fanfare about the stakeholders and bipartisan efforts that went into crafting the final bill.

The Christie administration is moving ahead with new regulations for charter schools, jumping ahead of the Legislature and its plans to take up the issue — and maybe a whole new law — in the fall.

One of the trickier tasks for schools is deciding where they can draw the line in controlling and disciplining their students for misbehavior, even when it happens well off school grounds or outside school hours.

The State Board of Education on Wednesday got an earful on the Christie administration’s push for charter schools and other so-called innovations, both pro and con, some quite public and some a bit quieter.