Top Education Advocate to Murphy’s Department of Education and State Board: The Madness Must Stop

STATEMENT FROM JERSEYCAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR PAULA WHITE REGARDING NJDOE’S PRESENTATION TO THE NEW JERSEY STATE SCHOOL BOARD OF EDUCATION

[New Jersey – December 7, 2002] This morning, before the New Jersey State Board of Education (SBOE), New Jersey Department of Education Commissioner Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan provided a broad overview of results from the state’s New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA) test.

However, as of today, specific results from last Spring’s test have yet to be released statewide, making it one of only two states in the country that have not provided full transparency to school leaders and parents.

The following is a statement from JerseyCAN Executive Director Paula White:

“This year, in particular, it is vital that States publicly report clear, timely, and concise information in an accessible format to help educators, parents, and families chart progress towards academic recovery.” – US Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona, September 13, 2022

“It saddens me that the basic overview provided today by Commissioner Allen McMillan, delivered almost three months after Secretary Cardona issued the edict above, missed the boat with regard to delivering timely information to the public. And to be clear, let’s not be distracted by today’s presentation — the New Jersey Department of Education has yet to answer the call for clear information delivered to the public regarding state assessment results.

“After a great deal of promises, anticipation, and hope for today’s State School Board of Education meeting, the Commissioner’s powerpoint was high on optics and headlines, but lacked meaningful data, substance, urgency, and vision. The state only provided summary graphs and incomplete data. To this day, we still need to find out which districts or schools are the beacons of light that we can learn from at this crucial time. This unacceptable time lag for information delivery minimizes our students’ efforts with their assessments and the work of our great teachers.

“If our children took the time to take the tests, we should prioritize taking the time to extract from their efforts the best ways we can to serve them.

“What is most clear from today’s summary is that New Jersey can no longer tout the tagline that we are “#1 in education” – when we are dead last in disseminating valuable information to the public for the benefit of our children.

“Information sharing must precede interventions, not the other way around. We can only steer our resources judiciously for our children’s benefit through comprehensive information review.

“This madness must stop.”

(This is a press release.)