BELMAR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

1101 Main Street

Belmar, NJ 07719

Dear New Jersey State Board of Education:

I wuld first like to thank the State Board of Education and the Commissioner fo rtheir thoughful consideration of the NJQSAC evaluation porcess.  I am here as Superintendent of Belmar Elemenatary School District, a school district with many low income families, a highly diverse community, and a growing Multlanguage Learners propulation.  We care deeply for the education and well being of our students and have made great strides to meet our rigorous goals, yet our growth and achievement have gone unrecongnized.  During the 2022-2023 school year, we experienced significant improvements, with over 10% growth in ELA and 8.6% growth in Math.  THis progress resulted in our district surpassing the state average by 8 percentage points in both subjects.  THis raises the question: "How is it that a district outperforming the state averages--expecially in a state known for academic excellence--still fails to pass a regulatory evaluation?"  I am arguing that the current system is flowed, especially in its treatment of districts with economically disadvantaged and minority sutdents.  The NJ Department of Education must reconsider and revamp this evaluation process to ensure it is equitble and truly reflective of staudent success across our divers state.

One of thee most pressing issues with the NJQSAC is its approach to subgroup weighting.  The curerent formula disproportionally penalizes low income high diversity districts, particularly those with higher numbers of Multilanguage Learners.  THis imbalanced approach creates a skeewed representation of these districts, reinformcing negative steriotypes about the adequacy of education in diverse schools.  The more diverse a district is, the more unfairly it is measured, perpetuating inequities rather than addressing them.

Another critical flaw in the NJQSAC evaluation process is the disproportionate weighting of subjects, particularly in K-8 districts.  Currently, science performance, an area in which only one third of the student population is tested, carries excessive weight in the overall evaluation.  This misrepresentation skews the academic success of of K-8 districts, especially given that 77% of New Jersey students fail the science assessment.  The test itself is flawed, and so is the weighting attached to it, making it an unreliable indicator of overall student achievement.

Despite New JErsey being the highest performing state in the United States, the NJQSAC evaluation process fails to adequately recognize the achievements of districts.  The current system doew not allow districts to achieve fulll points for performance, even when they meet or exceed the state average.  The highest performing districts in the state cannnot achieve maximum points.  Those points are avaiable in every other indicator of the QSAC process.  This demonstrates that the performance scoring system is broken and needs a fundamental reassessment.  It is akin to a teacher giving students a test worth 100 points while knowing all along that only 87 point are actually available to them.

The NJQSAC evaluation process in its current form fails to provide a fair and accurate assessment of New Jersey's divers school districts.  By perpetuating inequities through flawed subgroup weighting, imbalanced subject score weights, and unattainable performance scores, it undermines the very goals it seeks to achieve.   The NJ Delpartment of Education must take action to reform the NJQSAC, creating a system that truly reflects student growth and performance, irrespective of economic or demographic factors.  My teachers, students, administrators, and community have worked hard to forge the success we have achieved.  They deserve to be evaluated in a fair and equitable manner.

Thank you again to the NJDOE Commissioner and the State Baord of Education for your careful consideration of these proposed changes.  We trust that these recommendations will contribute to a fairer and more accurate evaluation process for all of New Jersey's school districts.