To earn an official Blue Ribbon award from the government, a school must achieve top ranks in reading and math, or make big strides with disadvantaged students.
Or the school could skip all that. It could pay about $8,000 to a nonprofit that hands out its own Blue Ribbon award, one that resembles the prestigious federal designation.
The award, from a South Carolina nonprofit group called Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence, has the same phrasing as the government’s. Its logo is barely distinguishable from that issued to schools over 43 years by the U.S. Department of Education. And just as public and private K-12 schools around the country hail their hard-won federal achievement, so, too, do those institutions that have paid for a lookalike honor with no government ties.
Across the country since 2001, more than 230 schools have collected the awards, according to the group’s website. For 2025 alone, the nonprofit’s website lists about 60 honorees — including one to a middle school named in honor of Ronald Reagan, the late president who established the government’s Blue Ribbon program to recognize K-12 academic rigor.
In the past few years, about 15 New Jersey schools have scored the purchased prestige. The latest: a Newark charter school that falls far short of the original award’s standards.
“It was a deception,” said Adonijah Williams, the mother of a former student at the K-8 New Horizons Community Charter School. Parents, she told NJ Spotlight News, were unaware that the honor came with a price tag.
New Horizons, whose website proclaims “Blue Ribbon School of Excellence,” says it takes pride in the award.
The school “takes its responsibility to serve students, families and the Newark community seriously and we do so with integrity and transparency,” its attorney, Perry L. Lattiboudere, said in a statement to NJ Spotlight News.
As the private awards give schools bragging rights, the organization that bestows them offers treats for administrators, too, that are paid for with public funds. For about $500 per person in conference fees and roughly $1,200 for a hotel room and a roundtrip Florida flight from Newark Liberty International Airport, school officials can enjoy a four-day trip to a Disney resort.
An expert on the government’s Blue Ribbon award, Tom Loveless, told NJ Spotlight News that he wasn’t familiar with the nonprofit.
“I was shocked,” said Loveless, a former Brookings Institution researcher. “I’ve heard nothing about it.”
Buying accolades while not disclosing the financial arrangements to the public can be a deceptive — and potentially illegal – practice called pay to play, according to attorney Bonnie Patten of Truth in Advertising, a Madison, Conn.-based nonprofit advocacy group that calls out deceptive marketing. State officials around the country “absolutely” should look into the paid awards, she said.
The New Jersey Department of Education declined to say whether it would investigate the use of taxpayer dollars. A department spokesperson called it “a matter of local governance.”
Hoboken paid a total of $32,500 for awards for five schools, with each discounted to $6,500. ”They paid tons of our taxpayer dollars for those fraudulent signs,” an outraged Patricia Waiters, a longtime resident and school activist, told NJ Spotlight News.
To get an idea of the standards for the private awards alongside those of the widely recognized government program, consider the flailing New Horizons.
FBI request
New Horizons pays top executives large bonuses, while seeing a nearly 50% staff turnover over 18 months, employees said. Its website notes that it has multiple teacher openings and can hire qualified candidates on the spot.
At the same time, the school may be under federal scrutiny. The FBI’s Newark office recently requested some of its financial documents from a former staffer.
Asked by NJ Spotlight News whether it was investigating the school’s use of public funds, the FBI declined to comment. The state Comptroller’s Office, with investigatory powers of its own, said it could neither confirm nor deny any inquiries.
K-8 New Horizons had 370 students, of a maximum 750, enrolled in 2024-25, according to federal data. Less than 28% are proficient in reading, and only 13% meet the bar for math, state data show. “The model of excellence in urban education,” the school notes on its website.
In an undated memo, principal Stephen Webb detailed a Blue Ribbon pre-award evaluation process and mentioned how staff attended a conference “where they participated in leadership workshops focused on student achievement, instructional best practices, and the use of data to drive decision-making.” The memo makes no mention of cost.
Former teachers’ skepticism of the Blue Ribbon status prompted an NJ Spotlight News investigation.
NJ Spotlight News spoke to 10 current and former New Horizons staffers who say the school practices cronyism, maintains inaccurate data reports and fails to provide some vital student services. Fearing retaliation, all but two spoke anonymously.
The charter school’s leadership dismissed what it called “meritless” claims by “disgruntled former staff members.” Through their lawyer, the leaders said they were proud of the award.
Families who chose the charter, an alternative to Newark public schools, said they believed the school’s Blue Ribbon was the federal recognition. Many staff thought so, a current employee said. All 10 of the current and former staff who spoke to NJ Spotlight News though, said New Horizons was nothing like the government’s high achievers.
“How are you a Blue Ribbon school?” asked Terrence Knox, who taught fifth grade at New Horizons. “Please. Give me a freaking break.”
‘Storytelling and branding’
Government-recognized Blue Ribbon schools, as they’re called, are a community bragging point, coveted in part because high-quality education drives residential real-estate values. Though the Trump administration ended the federal government’s awards last year, some states including New Jersey keep its criteria alive.
In June, the Newark charter’s officials, for the award it purchased, hosted a “Blue Ribbon cutting ceremony” attended by public schools Superintendent Roger Leon. Historically a charter schools critic, Leon publicly congratulated New Horizons.
Meanwhile, the elementary school paid nearly $25,000: A former staffer said the award cost $8,000, and New Horizons board meeting minutes show $2,700 for Blue Ribbon signs and T-shirts, $5,000 in conference fees and more than $9,000 for a Disney resort trip for eight administrators in December.
The school covered the costs of two leaders who flew to Orlando for the day, plus one staffer who was disinvited at the last minute, current and former employees said. They described the four-day conference at Coronado Springs Resort as a vacation-like retreat for the administrators, some of whom attended for the past three years, often with their families.
Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence grosses as much as $838,000 annually, almost entirely from fees and conferences, federal tax filings show. Its founder and president, Bartlett R. Teal Sr. and his wife, Alice Teal, the vice president, live in a lakeside South Carolina community, public records show. From 2022-25, the organization paid out $194,286 in management expenses, $595,779 in other fees and $244,495 in royalties.
The sole listed compensation was for CEO Judith Fields, who was paid about $155,000, according to tax records. Fields, formerly with the U.S. Department of Education, told NJ Spotlight News that Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence “evolved out of” the federal Blue Ribbon program, though she offered no details on any connection. The group’s website includes a small non-affiliation disclaimer.
Asked whether the logo similarities have prompted any complaints about confusion, Fields said: “I just don’t know. I’d have to look at each specific case.” As to whether schools that pay fees are ever denied an award, Fields said that happens “a lot.” She would not specify how often or name any schools that were denied. “I just don’t want to put a percentage on it,” she told NJ Spotlight News.
Fields said the Orlando events “capture the essence” of Walt Disney’s “use of storytelling and branding.”
Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence, and the schools that get its awards, say the nonprofit provides valuable coaching.
While the organization gave New Horizons low scores in many categories — including academics, special education, bullying and having a broken elevator for its disabled students — the school secured the award without rectifying all the issues, according to a former charter staffer who was close to the process.
So how did a school with so many publicly documented shortcomings come by the honor? The nonprofit used so-called “auditor overrides” to make it qualify, according to the ex-employee.
Fields told NJ Spotlight News that the organization grants no leeway for unfixed problems. Schools must show they meet indicators rather than receive overrides for “no reason,” she said.
Achieving the award was no simple matter, according to Lattiboudere, the attorney for the school. New Horizons, he said, is proud of the honor and of “the work that the staff has done to improve school climate, operations, and student support.”
‘False Blue Ribbon’
If a business practice has the capacity to mislead, it violates New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, which is among the nation’s most protective, according to William Pinilis, a Morristown-based trial lawyer who has litigated consumer fraud cases for decades.
The state attorney general’s office has the power to stop Blue Ribbon sales, or to stop schools from advertising the award, he said. The office’s Division of Consumer Affairs declined to comment to NJ Spotlight News.
Another veteran New Jersey consumer fraud lawyer, Andrew Wolf, recalled the rigorous process taken by his kids’ North Brunswick school to get the federal Blue Ribbon award. The purchased award program was “totally outrageous,” he told NJ Spotlight News.
Taxpayer dollars spent on this “false Blue Ribbon,” he said, might otherwise go toward tutoring, or hiring a teacher for a year. That’s why the matter seemed appropriate for state education officials to review, he said.
“I’m surprised the Department of Education told you: We leave this to the local districts to lie to their community,” Wolf said.
The office of Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a former federal prosecutor, declined to comment on whether her administration might intervene.
Top New Horizons administrators point to the honor when staff and parents criticize what they say is substandard academics, poor stewardship of public funds and failure to provide special education services and ongoing school violence. In an audio recording obtained by NJ Spotlight News, Webb, the principal, invoked the award when a mother complained about a lack of administrative action on student fighting.
“This is a Blue Ribbon school,” said Webb, urging students to “buy into” that image. “This stuff, when it goes on social media … that makes us look crazy.”
Current and former staff, meanwhile, dismissed the Blue Ribbon celebrations and their branded T-shirts as a “farce.”
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” said Knox, the former teacher. “You’re being deceptive with the parents.”
