NJ Education Report

Bob Braun at the Star-Ledger had a column yesterday that slammed the Christie Administration’s “dubious educational policy decisions made behind closed doors.” Those decisions include replacing “high school graduation tests with a gaggle of so-called ‘end-of-course’ tests.”

Mr. Braun needs a history lesson, because efforts to upgrade the current 8th-grade level high assessment (the HSPA) to a series of subject-specific tests go back further than the Christie Administration. NJ has long struggled with how to square a necessary elevation in expectations for a high school diploma with the troubling reality that many poor urban students can’t pass the current exam. (For example, see today’s Record, which cites Paterson Superintendent Donnie Evans’ goal: “Paterson for years has promoted students to the next grade level regardless of their performance, a practice the superintendent has promised to end.)

Do you keep the assessments easy so lots of kids will pass? Or do you make assessments more rigorous and confront the uncomfortable reality that many NJ kids pass through high school without mastery of basic material?

So many confounding factors: kids who drop out are more likely to end up in jail, a fact eloquently illustrated by  2007 study, “SRA: Loophole of Lifeline?,” co-authored by Stan Karp, who is quoted  in yesterday’s Braun editorial. Back then, Education Law Center was arguing that the State shouldn’t eliminate the SRA (Special Review Assessment), an alternative assessment originally intended for a tiny group of select students. Over time, the SRA had endured much criticism (see this 2005 white paper from then-Education Commissioner William Librera) because of its overuse — it was administered to 49.1% of Abbott students after they failed the HSPA three times — which both artificially inflated NJ’s high school graduation rates and put the State in the position of handing out diplomas like glow sticks at a rock concert.

Should we hand out diplomas freely to possibly save kids from a bleak future? Or should we raise standards so that the acquisition of a high school diploma has meaning? I don’t know the answer to this, except the obvious one, which also can sound glib: raise student achievement and institute educational reforms so that every kid, regardless of economic circumstance, masters appropriate material.

A pipe dream? Maybe. But, then again, we’ve never tried.

Anyway, back to our history lesson for Mr. Braun: his condemnation of the Christie Administration’s efforts to make NJ high school diplomas meaningful is an initiative that one can trace at least as far back as the Democratic administrations of both Govs. McGreevey and Corzine. For example, here’s an old piece from his own paper, the Star-Ledger (2009), which explains NJ’s plans for High School Redesign:

The New Jersey seniors of 2016 will have been drilled in more rigorous math and science programs, asked to complete a “personalized learning plan” to chart their learning goals; and, perhaps most controversially, given up to seven new state-mandated exams in different subjects over the course of their high school career.

Subject-specific tests are not a conspiracy on the part of Christie staffers. It’s a long-accepted elevation  — first proposed by Statehouse Democrats — of our current low-bar system. We haven’t resolved the ethical conundrums. Maybe we never will. But let’s get our facts straight.