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11-13 and 14-13 p.m. NJ Students - Test Scores in the News
The Record - N.J. statewide school test results stay the same as questions get harder

Star Ledger - N.J. students keep test scores up despite harder exams

NJ Spotlight - Student Test Scores Remain Steady, Despite Changes to Core Curriculum…New Jersey students face a world of differences, not just in what they need to study but in the way they'll be tested

Press of Atlantic City Editorial - New Jersey's schools / Among the best

The Record - N.J. statewide school test results stay the same as questions get harder

Wednesday, November 13, 2013   By  Leslie Brody

 

Students passed New Jersey tests in reading and math at roughly the same rates in spring as the year earlier — and education officials hailed that as an accomplishment Wednesday because some of the questions were tougher.

Statewide, about 67 percent of students in Grades 3 through 8 scored as proficient or better in language arts, and 75 percent did so in math.

These results come as New Jersey adjusts to a new set of expectations for what children should master in every grade. Known as the Common Core, these guidelines aim to change what’s taught from “a mile wide and an inch deep” to a more focused set of analytical abilities.

New online tests are coming in 2015 to measure students’ grasp of these skills, and officials said most of the spring tests already included some more sophisticated questions to smooth the transition.

 “That we have made the test harder and stayed the same is a very positive sign,” education commissioner Chris Cerf told the state board of education in Trenton.

He said this outcome was early evidence — though not definitive proof — that when New Jersey switches to more rigorous online tests, it will likely avoid the “violent disruptions” of plunging scores experienced recently in Kentucky, North Carolina and New York, which recently launched tests tied to the Common Core. He said there would be “downward pressure” on New Jersey scores under the coming tests, being designed by a 19-state consortium, but the drops were not likely to be as extreme because the state has long had stronger tests than many states.

To illustrate how the New Jersey tests had already changed, assistant commissioner Bari Erlichson cited a language arts question. Several years ago, the test might have asked a student to write about “a time you felt sad.” By contrast, a prompt in the spring might have asked a student to read a story about a sad character, and write an essay citing evidence from the passage to support the student’s analysis.

The new push is “much more focused on engaging with the text and literature,” Erlichson said. The Common Core, which has been adopted voluntarily by 45 states and the District of Columbia, aims to improve students’ abilities to investigate evidence and think critically so they can compete with their peers abroad.

The scores from the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge continued to reflect the state’s wide and chronic achievement gap. Only 59 percent of poor students passed the tests in math, for example, compared to 84 percent of their wealthier counterparts.

Erlichson praised Paterson for recent gains in language arts — combining all tested grades, the share of district students deemed proficient or better rose to 43 percent, from 38 percent three years earlier. “That’s a nice, strong upward trend,” she said.

But Sarah Laldee, an eighth-grade science teacher in School 2 in Paterson, expressed exasperation that the district was focusing so much on reading and math — because they are tested at nearly every grade level before high school — that attention to science had suffered. Currently science is tested only in Grades 4 and 8.

Laldee said she sees her eighth-graders for only four 45-minute periods every six days; she used to see them for an hour daily. Now she has roughly 150 students, about double the number five years ago. She said in several middle school grades, students had more time in gym than in science class.

“There’s a tremendous sense of frustration among science teachers who feel we’re not getting the time or attention to make the kinds of outcomes for students we know we can make,” Laldee said. “You feel like you’re having your hands cut off.”

Indeed, Paterson’s 8th-grade science results have weakened: in spring, 51 percent of students scored as proficient or better, down from 55 percent a year earlier.

Terry Corallo, a district spokeswoman, said the district was reviewing its science curriculum and options for after-school science events, such as a comet viewing at Garret Mountain next month. Meanwhile, she noted, “both reading and math skills are fundamental to a student’s success in the global economy, so we have dedicated additional time to these critical subject areas.”

Statewide, proficiency on the Grade 8 science test dipped to 79 percent passing in spring, from 82 percent a year earlier. Tracey Severns, chief academic officer for New Jersey, said she was convening educators in coming months to decide whether to adopt national guidelines called the “Next Generation Science Standards,” or possibly update science instruction in other ways.

Robert Byrne, an eighth-grade science teacher in Maywood, expressed pride in his students — nearly all passed and seven had perfect scores. He noted that at the micro-level in the classroom, success each year depends largely on who is on his roster. “I have classes some years that are outstanding,” he said. “One year I had 11 kids with perfect scores.”

Statewide scores on the High School Proficiency Assessment rose slightly to 94 percent. The test, which is now a graduation requirement, is often criticized for measuring eighth-grade skills. The education department plans to phase it out in favor of more rigorous end-of-course exams now being developed by the consortium called PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

 State officials said students now in Grades 8, 9, and 10 will take the consortium’s high school exams but passage won’t be necessary to get a diploma; after the state sees results of the 2015 test administration, officials will consider how to set new graduation requirements.

Email: brody@northjersey.com. on twitter @lesliebrody

 

Star Ledger - N.J. students keep test scores up despite harder exams

By Peggy McGlone/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger  Email the author | Follow on Twitter on November 13, 2013

New Jersey’s public school students performed about the same on their annual tests last year as they did the previous year, despite changes to the tests that made them more difficult.

About 67 percent of third through eight graders were proficient in language arts, and 75 percent were proficient in math, according to data released this morning. In high school, 93 percent scored proficient in language arts and almost 86 percent were proficient in math.

State education officials were pleased with the results for tests that are changing every year as New Jersey transitions to the new Common Core State Standards and the more rigorous tests that accompany them.

“The fact that we made the test harder and stayed the same is a positive sign,” Education Commission Christopher Cerf said. “When you raise expectations, you need time for people to grow into them.”

The results of the 2013 NJASK and HSPA tests were detailed in a presentation at the state Board of Education meeting this morning in Trenton.

 

NJ Spotlight - Student Test Scores Remain Steady, Despite Changes to Core Curriculum…New Jersey students face a world of differences, not just in what they need to study but in the way they'll be tested

John Mooney | November 14, 2013

 

Over the years, New Jersey’s annual rollout of school test scores has often come with a broader message: Students are doing better. Students are doing worse. The achievement gap is widening. The achievement gap is closing.

Yesterday, as the Christie administration announced that there was little change in the 2012-2013 test scores for New Jersey’s 2,500 schools, the message appeared to be more about the state itself as it embarks on some big changes in testing and standards.

One one hand, the administration was telling the public to stay calm, stressing that the new Common Core State Standards and the dramatically new testing they will bring in the coming years maybe not as big a shock as some fear.

On the other, there is going to be at least some shock.

In an elaborate hour-long presentation before the state Board of Education, Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and his top lieutenant for testing, assistant commissioner Bari Erlichson, went step by step through the latest scores and what they mean for the state.

Bottom line: little had changed in the past year -- or even the past several years -- in terms of test results, as the state as started to transition to the new Common Core standards.

On the elementary and middle school tests, known as NJASK, about 67 percent of all students had shown proficiency in language arts and 75 percent in math. The language arts was a slight improvement, the math a tiny decline from the previous year.

On the high school test, currently required for graduation, there was not much change either: 94 passing in language arts and 85 percent in math last year, both slight increases from 2012.

Search interactive database of results for NJASK8

Search interactive database of results for High School Proficiency Assessment

In the national picture, New Jersey also continued to fare in the very top tier when looking at SAT scores, Advanced Placement tests, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the exam given nationwide to a sample of students in each state.

Erlichson made light of how New Jersey again placed behind Massachusetts in overall achievement, saying that's not a bad place to be. “Good for Massachusetts,” she said. “We’re Number Two.”

But the bigger message from the administration appears to be that no news is good news, and that little change was actually a good sign as the tests slowly evolve and presumably get harder under the Common Core Standards that New Jersey and more than 45 other states have adopted.

According to Cerf, the static scores were evidence that New Jersey was at least keeping up so far. That’s a stark contrast to some other states, such as New York most recently, where the transition to the new content on the tests has brought drastic drops in the percentage of students meeting performance targets.

“We feel very good that these scores have held firm,” said Cerf yesterday of the latest results. “We think this is early evidence that the violent disruption of students that are not proficient is going to be less extreme in New Jersey than it has been in other states.

“The fact that we made the test harder and we stayed the same [in terms of achievement levels] is a very positive sign,” he said.

The focus on the new standards and testing was apparent, as much of Erlichson’s presentation centered on the changes to come, including detailed information about how the new standards vary from the previous ones.

For instance, she described how the Common Core standards pose “subtle” changes in language arts, but went on to detail how there is more critical thinking in reading instruction and more informational text in the writing.

Overall, as many as half of the items on some of the state tests had been newly aligned to the Common Core standards, she said.

Press of Atlantic City Editorial - New Jersey's schools / Among the best

Posted: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 12:01 am

New Jersey students rank among the best in the nation in standardized test scores. Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress released last week showed that the average score for New Jersey eighth-graders put them second nationally in reading and math. Fourth-graders were fourth in reading and sixth in math.

You shouldn't be surprised by that - the state's schools consistently rank at or near the top in academic benchmarks and graduation rates - but maybe you are surprised. Maybe you've heard so much rhetoric about the sorry state of New Jersey's schools and its teachers that their actual level of achievement is news to you.

That unfortunate tone has been part of the recent debates over public-employee pensions and health benefits and tenure reform.

And earlier this month, at an appearance in Somers Point, Gov. Chris Christie stuck to the dismissive language in an exchange with a Buena Regional Middle School teacher. Melissa Tomlinson asked, "Why are you portraying our schools as 'failure factories?'" The governor answered, "Because they are."

That kind of derogatory generalization has been a constant in the governor's approach to education. His reform program often focuses on vouchers and charter schools - efforts that all but give up on fixing broken public schools.

That's a shame, because when he gets into specifics, the problems Christie talks about are real. There really are too many inner-city schools where achievement rates are low and where students are pushed along from grade to grade rather than being educated.

Even the NAEP tests show that there are still wide achievement gaps between poor children and their more affluent classmates and between minority and white students. And while New Jersey students scored well compared to their peers nationally, a majority of students did not score as proficient or higher.

As good as New Jersey schools are, we still have a lot of work to do to make sure that every student is in a true learning environment. By all means, let's debate how to do that. But let's have that debate with facts, not myths. And the primary fact is that New Jersey's public schools are among the best in the nation.

And who's responsible for that? It's not the politicians and it's not the theorists. The credit goes to the thousands of teachers who are doing the hard work of education every day. Those successful teachers know a lot about how to reach students and change lives.

Let's start from there as we try to figure out how to improve the individual schools that aren't meeting the high standards set by most districts in the state. Let's try to figure out how to better serve minority children and students with difficult home lives.

But as we do that, let's also realize that improving education in New Jersey is a case of building on strength, not weakness.