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CHARTER vs DISTRICT · NEW JERSEY

New Jersey charter schools, ranked

Every New Jersey charter with a BeatsExpectations score, best to worst, against what its student demographics predict.

Charters ranked
60
with a BeatsExpectations score
Charter sector vs district
+5.6 pp
charters lead on average
Top charter
+50.2 pp
The Gray Charter School
NJ CHARTER SCHOOLS RANKED BY BEATSEXPECTATIONS
SchoolCity% FRL% ProficientBeats (pp) ↓
The Gray Charter SchoolNEWARK72.9%76.4%50.2
Soaring Heights Charter SchoolJERSEY CITY55.9%72.8%37.2
College Achieve Paterson Charter SchoolPaterson91.6%47.6%31.5
North Star Academy Charter SchoolNEWARK86.7%49.9%31.2
Pace Charter School of HamiltonHAMILTON TWP79.9%52.5%30.1
Robert Treat Academy Charter SchoolNEWARK79.1%51.5%28.7
Princeton Charter SchoolPRINCETON7.8%89.1%27.2
Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter SchoolSomerset15.2%84.9%27
BelovED Community Charter SchoolJersey City79.3%49.6%26.8
Discovery Charter SchoolNEWARK84.8%43.8%24.1
Riverbank Charter School of ExcellenceRoebling23.4%76.8%23.5
Maria Varisco Rogers Charter SchoolNEWARK88.5%39.9%22.1
Hatikvah International Academy Charter SchoolEast Brunswick8.8%81.9%20.6
Hoboken Dual Language Charter SchoolHOBOKEN8.8%81.7%20.4
Newark Educators Community Charter SchoolNewark81.0%40.7%18.9
The Queen City Academy Charter SchoolPLAINFIELD77.8%42.4%18.8
College Achieve Central Charter SchoolPlainfield84.4%38.3%18.4
Pride Academy Charter SchoolEAST ORANGE78.3%40.6%17.3
Paul Robeson Charter School for the HumanitiesTRENTON94.9%31.2%17
John P. Holland Charter SchoolWoodland86.0%34.9%15.8
International Charter SchoolTRENTON97.2%28.0%15
TEAM Academy Charter SchoolNEWARK92.9%30.1%14.8
Community Charter School of PatersonPATERSON99.3%26.2%14.4
Ocean Academy Charter SchoolLakewood92.9%29.5%14.2
Philip's Academy Charter SchoolNewark71.2%40.9%13.8
Roseville Community Charter SchoolNEWARK90.5%30.0%13.4
Elysian Charter School of HobokenHOBOKEN9.9%73.4%12.7
Foundation Academy Charter SchoolTrenton89.9%29.5%12.6
Jersey City Golden Door Charter SchoolJERSEY CITY59.8%45.8%12.3
Central Jersey College Prep Charter SchoolSomerset33.2%60.3%12.3
Compass Academy Charter SchoolVineland80.3%34.4%12.2
Learning Community Charter SchoolJERSEY CITY32.0%60.1%11.4
Bergen Arts and Sciences Charter SchoolGARFIELD61.8%43.2%10.8
East Orange Community Charter SchoolEAST ORANGE84.8%29.8%10.1
Hudson Arts and Science Charter SchoolKearny70.5%37.0%9.4
College Achieve Greater Asbury Park Charter School DistrictNeptune83.3%29.6%9
Jersey City Global Charter SchoolJersey City20.1%64.1%8.9
Link Community Charter SchoolNewark72.3%35.4%8.8
People's Achieve Community Charter SchoolNewark87.1%26.9%8.3
New Horizons Community Charter SchoolNEWARK99.2%19.9%8.1
Jersey City Community Charter SchoolJERSEY CITY82.5%28.5%7.5
Philip's Academy Charter School of PatersonPaterson78.3%30.7%7.4
Hoboken Charter SchoolHoboken20.1%62.5%7.3
Unity Charter SchoolMORRISTOWN16.8%64.1%7.2
Cresthaven Academy Charter SchoolPlainfield82.4%27.4%6.4
Hope Academy Charter SchoolASBURY PARK91.9%22.0%6.1
Camden's Promise Charter SchoolCamden91.3%21.6%5.4
Principle Academy Charter SchoolEgg Harbor Township86.6%23.9%5.2
Achievers Early College Prep Charter SchoolTrenton78.3%28.3%5
Classical Academy Charter School of CliftonCLIFTON54.1%39.7%3.1
Kindle Education Public Charter SchoolJersey City64.4%33.9%2.9
Greater Brunswick Charter SchoolNEW BRUNSWICK83.1%23.1%2.4
The Village Charter SchoolTRENTON83.7%22.6%2.2
Middlesex County STEM Charter SchoolPerth Amboy75.1%27.0%1.9
Paterson Charter School for Science and TechnologyPATERSON78.2%24.8%1.4
Passaic Arts and Science Charter SchoolPassaic68.1%29.9%1
Atlantic Community Charter SchoolGalloway93.4%14.6%-0.4
Empowerment Academy Charter SchoolJersey City53.9%36.1%-0.5
Great Oaks Legacy Charter SchoolNewark65.7%29.0%-1.2
Union County TEAMS Charter SchoolPLAINFIELD76.0%22.6%-2
60 of 60 rows · Every scored charter in NJ (top 60 by residual), best to worst. "Beats" is the percentage-point gap between a school's actual proficiency and what the per-state regression predicts from its FRL share. Sort ascending to see the state's weakest charters. Worst charter shown: Union County TEAMS Charter School (-2.0 pp).↓ Download charter-vs-district-by-state-nj.csv

What "Beats" means here

Ranking charter schools by raw proficiency mostly ranks them by the families they enroll. To compare a charter to the district schools it actually competes with, we use BeatsExpectations: a per-state regression of school proficiency on free-and-reduced-lunch share. It predicts the proficiency a school "should" post given its poverty profile, and the residual, in percentage points, is how far above or below that line the school actually lands. A charter at +15 is beating its demographics; one at -15 is trailing them. The table above ranks every scored New Jersey charter on that residual. Sort ascending to see the weakest performers.

How New Jersey charters compare to district schools

The headline stat is the charter sector's average residual minus the district sector's. A positive number means New Jersey charters, on average, beat their demographics by more than the state's district schools do; a negative number means they trail. The national picture is genuinely mixed: charters beat district schools handily in some states (New York is the clearest case) and trail them badly in others (Ohio and Pennsylvania, where troubled cyber-charter sectors drag the average down). See the national report for every state side by side.

Limits

BeatsExpectations controls for poverty, but not for everything that separates charters from district schools: charters can have application and lottery processes, different special-education and English-learner shares, and different mid-year attrition. A high residual is strong evidence a school is doing something right, but it is not proof the same students would have done worse down the street. Treat this as the fairest single comparison available from public data, not a settled verdict on school choice.

Source data

NCES Common Core of Data 2024-25 (charter flag, FRL share, enrollment) and New Jersey's native state assessment for the most recent available year. The BeatsExpectations regression is recomputed after every data refresh.

HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT

Anyone is welcome to cite or republish these findings. Please credit allk12.com and link back to this page so readers can verify the underlying data.

allk12 (2026). "New Jersey charter schools, ranked by BeatsExpectations." Retrieved from https://allk12.com/reports/charter-vs-district/new-jersey
For interview requests or custom data pulls: [email protected]
DOWNLOAD THE DATA
↓ charter-vs-district-by-state-nj.csv
RELATED
Charter vs district by state · Best New Jersey schools · New Jersey test scores · All New Jersey schools
DATA NOTICE

allk12 is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NCES, the US Census Bureau, any state education agency or assessment program, or any other government agency. Source data is compiled from public records and provided "as is," without warranty of accuracy or completeness. You rely on it, and any analysis derived from it, at your own risk. See the full disclaimer.