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NJ Spotlight - CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END FOR NJASK IN GARDEN STATE’S SCHOOLS?...In its last iteration, the state's decade-old test is serving as a transition to PARCC and Common Core After nearly a decade as New Jersey’s main state test for public schools, the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge -- known simply as "NJASK" -- is taking its final bow this month.
Star Ledger - President of national teachers union joins parents, teachers for another protest of Newark school plan
NJ Spotlight - PROFILE: PATERSON SCHOOL ADVOCATE IN QUIETER STORY OF STATE-CONTROLLED SCHOOLS...Rosie Grant’s Paterson Education Fund has seen state-led schools through uneasy times, now plays role of 'critical friend'
NJ Spotlight - CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END FOR NJASK IN GARDEN STATE’S SCHOOLS?
JOHN MOONEY | MAY 7, 2014
In its last iteration, the state's decade-old test is serving as a transition to PARCC and Common Core
After nearly a decade as New Jersey’s main state test for public schools, the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge -- known simply as "NJASK" -- is taking its final bow this month.
The test is underway this week in more than 2,000 elementary and middle schools, with students from grades 3 to 8 sitting through four days of language arts and math evaluations.
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And that will pretty much be it for the venerable NJASK.
Next year, the state moves to a new generation of online testing with its own acronym: PARCC. (It stands for the Partnership of Assessment for the Readiness of College and Careers, a consortium of 16 participating states, plus Washington, D.C.)
But even as NJASK is phased out, it will continue to ease the transition to the Common Core State Standards, the guiding principles of the new PARCC tests.
These changes are readily apparent in the grades 6 to 8 math sections. Grades 6 and 7, for example, will concentrate more on ratios and relationships. Grade 8 will focus more on mathematical functions.
The math sections in the other grades, as well as the language arts tests for all grades, have already been aligned with the Common Core, part of an extended transition that started in 2010, when the state adopted the new standards. But these sections will continue to be tweaked and tuned with new questions aligned to the Common Core.
And for all the debate about PARCC, which is being field tested in New Jersey this spring, NJASK has had its share of critics over the years as well.
In its very first iteration in 1999, the fourth-grade test then called the Elementary School Proficiency Assessment (ESPA) was greeted with disbelief when just a third of the students passed in language arts.
Over the years, the slow return of NJASK scores well into the summer break further frustrated teachers and other educators who wondered how they could use the results to help teach students no longer in their classes.
At the same time, NJASK results were the chief tool to judge schools under the No Child Left Behind Act, a level of accountability not seen before in New Jersey or elsewhere.
It was the start in earnest of the standards and testing movement that continues to this day, with the last round of NJASK scores being used in the first statewide evaluation of teachers.
NJASK was also the first test to be greeted by public protests, as a fledgling movement of parents and families decided to opt out of the tests.
State officials this week said the move from NJASK to PARCC is a natural progression, moving away from the broad measures of school accountability to closer tracking of student performance and teacher practice.
“NJASK was a great test to serve the purpose that it was designed for,” said Bari Erlichson, the assistant state commissioner overseeing the state’s $21 million testing regimen. “But as a tool to guide instructional practice, it hasn’t fulfilled that purpose well.”
There will be one NJASK holdover after this year, although its days are also likely numbered.
NJASK’s science test -- given to just fourth and eighth graders -- is set to continue in some form next year, state officials said, although PARCC is moving to a science test as well. Federal regulation requires a science test in at least one grade each of elementary, middle, and high schools.
Star Ledger - President of national teachers union joins parents, teachers for another protest of Newark school plan
By Peggy McGlone/The Star-Ledger
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on May 07, 2014 at 6:53 AM
Since its introduction in December, the plan has been widely criticized for its disruption of neighborhood schools and its embracing of charter schools.NEWARK — American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will meet with teachers and staff of Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School this morning to show her support for the school, which is slated to be turned over to a charter school in September as part of a city-wide school reorganization.
Weingarten will tour the school, one of three that Superintendent Cami Anderson has designated for operation by charter schools. Currently a K-8 neighborhood school, Hawthorne Avenue will house BRICK Charter School’s K-4 grades next fall. In addition, TEAM Academy will have kindergarten through grade 1 and will grow over time.
After the meeting, the union president will join mayoral candidate and City Councilman Ras Baraka, Sen. Ron Rice and parents and students in a protest at City Hall. The rally is scheduled for noon.
This is a return visit for Weingarten, who has repeatedly stood with Newark parents and teachers in protest over Anderson’s One Newark plan
NJ Spotlight - PROFILE: PATERSON SCHOOL ADVOCATE IN QUIETER STORY OF STATE-CONTROLLED SCHOOLS
JOHN MOONEY | MAY 7, 2014
Rosie Grant’s Paterson Education Fund has seen state-led schools through uneasy times, now plays role of 'critical friend'
Job: Executive director of the Paterson Education Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for city’s schoolchildren and runs programs on behalf of parents and other stakeholders -- 2013 to present.
Why she matters: In her first full year on the job, Grant leads a group that has become not just a steady community voice in the Silk City’s schools, but increasingly in policy debates about state control of schools.
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Paterson Education Fund website
Statewide lesson: In its 30-year history, Paterson Education Fund has proven a strong model of local advocacy, while working amicably with the state’s appointed superintendent, Donnie Evans -- at least for now.
Not Newark: The relationship is a sharp contrast to Newark’s state-run schools, where superintendent Cami Anderson has been at constant odds with community groups and seen her reforms jeopardized.
View of state leadership: “Dr. Evans been very supportive of community engagement . . . Right now, we are enjoying a good relationship with the district, and I would say, we’re in a role as a critical friend. We want to work with the district, we want to see it get better, and where it doesn’t, we will tell you.”
Still no friend of state control: The fund supported the local advisory board’s legal challenge of the state control two years ago, a complaint ultimately lost. But Grant said the quest is not over, and she’s hopeful that the district is on a path to at least some local control in the coming year under acting commissioner David Hespe.
Her driving force: Now living in Piscataway, she said the entire tenor of the schools differs in how they work with families and parents. “Why can’t we have that in Paterson? Why is there such a disparity? That has been a driving force all along. These kids deserve better.”
Long-term hope: “We need to educate the whole child. We need to raise up citizens who can be thinkers and doers.”
Big shoes to fill: Grant is following in the footsteps of the group’s founding director and long-time public face, Irene Sterling, who retired last year. “For many years, it was just the two of us,” Grant said, who now leads a staff of five. “I could not have been trained or groomed.”
Background: Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Grant moved first to Worcester, MA., as a teenager and then to Paterson, where she saw a community with schools deep in trouble and dysfunction. After the state’s takeover in 1991, and with two young children, she joined the Paterson Education Fund in 1993 as a program director.
Quote: “I knew I would have to get involved in my children’s education. And while I fought for my own kids, I ended up fighting for other kids, too.”
PEF’s own evolution: Grant said the fund has evolved from one supporting innovative programs and teachers in the district, to now also increasingly serving in an advocacy outside the district. “When we started it was doing good, then it was making a difference, and now it’s making change. We hope to continue to make change.”
What you may not know about her: Grant is a warden in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Paterson.
Hometown: She now lives in Piscataway with her husband, Omar Grant, who works in the corporate office of Bed, Bath and Beyond. She has two children in their early 20s.
Paterson Education Fund website
