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Politickernj - N.J. replacing proficiency, assessment tests with end-of-year exams for high-schoolers "Gov. Chris Christie and Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf announced education reform plans today that call for eliminating the 11th grade High School Proficiency Assessment and OSHA tests and replacing them with annual, end-of–year, course exams in each high school grade.....The other reform announced is a proposal to change how high school graduation rates are calculated. This mostly involves determining how many 9th graders who haven’t moved or left the district graduate within four years.
Politickernj - N.J. replacing proficiency, assessment tests with end-of-year exams for high-schoolers
By Minhaj Hassan | April 30th, 2012 - 1:12pm
PLAINSBORO - Gov. Chris Christie and Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf announced education reform plans today that call for eliminating the 11th grade High School Proficiency Assessment and OSHA tests and replacing them with annual, end-of–year, course exams in each high school grade.
“We are going to take those off the shelf and replace them with in-course examinations related to common core curriculums,” Cerf said during an appearance at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School.
Cerf said the exam is flawed in that the 11th grade exam actually tests at an 8th grade level.
Once trouble spots are found in the pass-fail exam, the teachers or administrator of that school could form a corrective action plan to address that student’s needs before it’s too late. The exams will be similar to the Regents exam in New York and will kick in within about five years. So, current fourth-graders can be expected to take these year-end exams when they reach high school.
Cerf and Christie made the announcement at the high school, a 1,600-student Middlesex County school that is among the highest-achieving school districts in the state.
The exams are the recommendation of a college/career task force and will test the students in math and language arts. Once the tests are phased in they could expand to other subjects like science and social studies.
The problem for many years has been that even though many students graduate high school, many of them wind up having to take remedial classes in college because they are not sufficiently prepared to handle college-level courses, according to the administration. Cerf said that is the case for 90 percent of community college students and 25 percent of Rutgers students.
He said many members of the business community have had difficulty finding qualified candidates for jobs they have available.
“The people are not capable of taking advantage of those jobs.”
The other reform announced is a proposal to change how high school graduation rates are calculated. This mostly involves determining how many 9th graders who haven’t moved or left the district graduate within four years. When this measure is used, New Jersey’s actual high school graduation rate slips from 94 percent (under the prior measurement) to 83 percent, the administration stated.
“Seventeen percent who start in the 9th don’t graduate (in time),” Cerf said.
Data of this kind will be tracked with the N.J. Smart Data system, Cerf said.
States have generally used different measures to calculate graduation rates, and the National Governor’s Association has called for a universal measurement, Cerf said.
Christie said these reforms are the initial steps toward accountability.
“High school doesn’t end at eighth grade,” he said.
