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Testimony Before the Assembly Education Committee on the Special Review Assessment

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September 22, 2008
Chairman Cryan and Members of the Committee:

I want to thank you for the opportunity to present on the Special Review Assessment (SRA) and bill A-2250, which would prohibit its use. As many of you may know, E3 has long opposed the use of the SRA for many reasons that are detailed extensively in the attached documents. E3, former Commissioner of Education Saul Cooperman, and Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, with the help of Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, led the initial effort to have the SRA eliminated several years ago. And, as the attached documents also show, we interacted extensively with the State Board of Education during the recent process leading to their decision to continue the SRA’s use earlier this year.

We were, however, notably disappointed by the Board’s decision, as well as the Department’s recommendations on how to remediate the SRA. This was not necessarily because we oppose an alternate route for students to demonstrate their mastery of the Core Curriculum Content Standards, but because we believe numerous flaws in the SRA process, including its questionable rigor, lack of uniform scoring, and disproportionate use on students of color, make it inherently unequal. We have also argued extensively that the SRA devalues a New Jersey high school diploma because it ensures that the diploma is not a reliable predictor of K-12 achievement. Last week, in fact, students testified before the State Board on just this issue, relaying painfully that, upon arriving at their local community colleges, they were woefully underprepared, despite having received their high school diplomas and believing they had mastered the content and skills necessary to attend college. The business, higher education, and now the student community, are all becoming of one mind on the danger of this issue.

SRA supporters have argued that the alternate route is a second chance that students need, even though the three-time failure necessary to trigger it makes it effectively a fourth chance. They have argued that graduation is a rite of passage. They have argued that we should not deny a diploma to a student who has allegedly done all other course work but merely failed the exit exam, though the three-time failure of the exam proves they were passed along repeatedly without mastering the required knowledge. They have argued that eliminating the SRA will raise dropout rates, even though the districts identified for SRA abuse already have among the state’s highest dropout rates. And, sinisterly—and despite the fact that the average African American high school graduate is as many as four grade levels behind his/her suburban counterpart—they have argued that it is more important to give a student a diploma than it is to ensure the student can read it. Simply put, they believe “graduation” is more important than “education.” We reject this notion wholeheartedly.

But the more important reason for the SRA’s elimination is that it provides a perverse incentive not to change K-12 policies that result in near 20% of graduates annually being unable to demonstrate content mastery on our high school exit exam, which Commissioner Davy describes as a “middle school level test,” even after taking it three times. Simply put, the SRA is the most pronounced expression of long standing K-12 failure, and its existence, and its ability to inflate the state’s graduation total by as many as 15,000 students, gives the appearance that all is well with New Jersey’s public schools when nothing could be further from the truth. Consider that, despite the intensity and importance of the SRA revelation, neither the New Jersey Education Association with its incessant advertising, nor the Governor, nor the Department of Education, have stopped asserting that New Jersey has the nation’s highest graduation rate. Even when, if SRA takers are removed from the tally, we are not 1st in the nation, we are 24th. Maintaining this fiction is necessary to avoid both the political and financial pressure school districts would inevitably bear if the truth about high school failure were revealed.

And Members of the Committee, you must know that use of the SRA, though disproportionate in urban or Abbott districts, has seen its most rapid growth in non-Abbott districts over recent years. The rapid increase in SRA use, effectively “in the suburbs,” should affirm nothing short of the danger of letting the disease flourish—K-12 failure and failed reforms statewide—while ignoring the symptom, the SRA.

Additionally, the Department, despite the clear directives given it to reform the process several years ago, is only now putting forth a plan to remediate the SRA process. It has stalled and done nothing to alter the program, and even now wants to extend it through 2010. The Department has made it clear it will not act unless it is forced to.

And this is the most important lesson of the SRA and why this Committee and the Legislature should act on its elimination where the State Board and the Department failed to. New Jersey has a “Standards Problem” of which the SRA is the most glaring example. We have set the bar so low for “passing” or “proficiency” that being deemed proficient on our state assessments is of nearly no value. And this problem expresses itself at all levels and on all assessments so emphatically that it undermines the quality of the state’s entire public school system.

Nowhere is this more evident than on 4th grade language arts assessments, where to be deemed proficient a student need answer as few as 42% of question correctly. This—the great gateway assessment meant to instill confidence in Abbott district reforms and progress—is such a low threshold for success it is virtually meaningless. Take Newark, for example. Already identified by the Department for its overuse of the SRA, where 40.1% of 4th graders could not best the 42% benchmark for proficiency. More startling is that the score for advanced proficiency—the gold standard—on 4th grade language arts is only a 70%, what I am sure members of this committee would consider barely passing under any circumstance. The number of Newark students who could score at or above 70%? Only 2.4%, or 76 students out of 3,161 who took the test.

Is this the progress almost $1 billion of educational spending buys in Newark?

Or take Camden, where despite a score for proficiency of 47% on the language arts portion of our high school exit exam—a middle school level test mind you—51.9% of students could not achieve proficiency. Similarly, the score for advanced proficiency, 71%, was only achieved by 2% of students district wide—just 10 students out of 489.

Is this what $340 million for 13,150 students—nearly $26,000 per child—buys in Camden?

And this emergency is not only contained to the Abbott districts. Statewide only 19.4% of exit exam takers could best the 71% mark on language arts literacy. Indeed, at Milburn High, rated the state’s best high school by New Jersey Monthly, only half (51.8%) of students were able to score above 71%. To be utterly alarmed by the chasm between the perception of the nation’s best public schools, and the reality of standards so low even an “F” student can vault them handily, does not do this emergency justice. And all of this with the nation’s highest per pupil spending, and teacher salaries that are consistently in the top five nationally. Committee members, what is this spending giving our students?

To summarize: we believe the Committee should proceed aggressively with the removal of the Special Review Assessment. The SRA occludes K-12 failure and its abolition will constitute a necessary raising of standards that must be applied at all levels and on all assessments statewide. But, Committee Members, you must understand that, though raising standards is necessary, high standards are simply a diagnostic tool: a vital element of reform, but not a reform themselves. Eliminating the SRA will give us the honest, true picture of high school achievement in this state, but it will not change the way our schools operate absent other measures. In the pro-SRA report “Loophole or Lifeline,” supporters assert that the overwhelming failure of students on the math portion of the exit exam indicates a lack of either quality math instruction or quality math teachers. This is echoed by recent Praxis exam results that showed only 58% of prospective teachers overall, and less than 1/3 of minority applicants, were able to pass the math portion of the certification exam. What has the Department offered this Committee to address this glaring deficiency? Or has the NJEA changed its management or negotiating philosophies to address this talent gap?

Core to any meaningful debate about K-12 reform is honesty. Without it, there can be no serious effort to move beyond the status quo. And, with the SRA as prime example, what we currently have is “the big lie” about student achievement where the sweeping truth is critical. We support A-2250, its sponsors Chairman Cryan and Assemblyman Coutinho, and we stand ready to work with you to define a clearer, more transparent, more accountable system of schools to educate the youth of this state.

Thank you.

Derrell Bradford
Deputy Director
Dir. Communications
E3