NJ Education Report

Lucille Davy, Commissioner of Education, will depict her “vision of the future” today for New Jersey’s high schools, in spite of strident opposition from the Education Law Center, the County Vocational Schools, and other opponents to a “one size fits all” approach, i.e., state standardization.

The Times of Trenton gives a preview today of Davy’s speech to the State BOE:

Corzine unveiled the broad concepts last spring, with an emphasis on math, science and what he called “21st-century skills.” The push is part of a national campaign known as the American Diploma Project that is being pursued for high schools in more than two dozen states.

It includes required classes in biology, chemistry, advanced algebra and geometry, each with statewide end-of-course exams that would be a big shift from New Jersey’s current testing. The biology requirement started last year, and Algebra I is being required this year.

The new curricular changes also include mandatory classes in personal finance and world history, although Davy will not address the most controversial element of this mandate: that high school students will be required to pass standardized tests in every subject in order to graduate.

There will be no additional state money to finance this mandate.

It’s very No Child Left Behind-ish. All our children are good-looking and above average. (Where’s Garrison Keiller when you need him?) All our children will be proficient in every subject by 2014, the drop-dead date for NCLB, and this includes children with cognitive disabilities, severe behavior problems, new English speakers, children from impoverished and deprived backgrounds.

High standards are great. What’s not to like? Other states have successfully implemented state-wide subject testing; New York State began its Regents program in 1865, though it offers the option of a “local” diploma with less stringent standards and fewer tests.

Here’s the rub. The NJ DOE is fumbling the implementation of a myriad of legislation already. For example, the new QSAC district monitoring system (formally titled Quality Single Accountability Continuum — who makes these up?), which is intended to increase efficiency and accountability, is so mismanaged that corrections are issued regularly and confusion reigns. It’s fine to announce a “vision for the future” from a mountaintop, but these universal high standards issued by a department flummoxed by the simplest sort of implementation seem an odd sort of willful blindness, a mandated myopia.

Our home rule system in New Jersey is extreme. But so is this urgent push for standardization without the structure, staff, or political capital to bring it off successfully. If we’re going to do this, let’s get it right.