ELC is urging the NJ State Board of Education to reject the Commissioner of Education’s proposal to eliminate the state’s alternative test for obtaining a high school diploma. The State Board was scheduled to vote on the proposal on July 20th, but has postponed its vote until its August 3, 2005 meeting.

New Jersey students are required to pass either the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) or the alternative test, the Special Review Assessment (SRA), to qualify for a high school diploma. The Commissioner has proposed elimination of the SRA because of alleged abuses in its administration and because almost 20% of New Jersey’s high school seniors now obtain diplomas through the alternative route.

In its comments, ELC urges the State Board to direct the Commissioner to develop a proposal for strengthening or replacing the SRA with an improved alternative assessment process. ELC notes that multiple measures of assessing achievement are used by at least 26 other states and are required by the No Child Left Behind Act. Further, ELC anticipates that low income children will be those most negatively impacted by using a single high stakes test to obtain a diploma, with no alternative pathways to measure student performance.

ELC is also calling on the State Board to ensure prompt implementation of the Abbott Secondary Education Reforms set to be launched this September. In addition, the State Board should immediately restart work on "NJSMART," the statewide student level database for tracking student and school performance, and issue bids for the long-delayed, Court-ordered formal evaluation of the Abbott programs and reforms.

"These initiatives are essential to improving high school graduation rates, and for developing a rigorous assessment system to measure student achievement of state content standards," said ELC Senior Attorney Elizabeth Athos.

Prepared: July 23, 2005