The New Jersey Department of Education announced that next week it will release statewide K-12 assessment data that will provide insight into overall trends in how students are performing on the New Jersey State Student Learning Assessments test.
The data is expected to be released on the department’s website on Wednesday after being presented at the monthly meeting of the state Board of Education, spokesman Shaheed Morris said.
Paper-based NJSLA tests were conducted in April while computer-based tests were completed by June. The Department of Education mailed district-wide results to schools over the summer, and individual student reports were sent to parents in early September, in time for the start of the new school year.
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Advocates have urged the state to expedite and release comprehensive data for a comprehensive view of where students stand two years into the pandemic, particularly those in subgroups such as special education, low-income earners and children in various geographic regions across the state. The department’s deputy commissioner, Jordan Schiff, had set a “late winter” timeline for the release of the data.
Calls for the statewide results to be released came after a statewide test showed a drop in scores in New Jersey among elementary and middle school students. Scores in the National Assessment of Educational Progress declined in grades four and eight compared to 2019 in English and math. This was a statewide trend, although New Jersey continues to rank above other states on the national average for math and English proficiency.
The NAEP results showed that eighth graders in New Jersey experienced one of the sharpest declines in math proficiency in the country, while reading skills remained about the same.
Elected officials, speaking during an event calling for the results to be released earlier, said they wanted them before the end of the year.
“The number one question is where are we in New Jersey and the answer is we don’t know because the numbers haven’t been released,” Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz said at a webinar hosted by JerseyCAN Wednesday night , an advocacy group for education.
Ruiz said “it was brought to her attention” that one reason for the delay could be that the state Department of Education is trying to produce a “more robust” report. We need this data to close performance gaps, said Senate Education Committee Chair and Senator Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth. “We shouldn’t be afraid of the data,” he said, noting that it’s designed to help schools thrive.
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The statewide data, which is aligned with New Jersey standards, is critical to being able to compare it to the NAEP’s more “macro” view, JerseyCAN chief Paula White said in October to get a full picture of where the students are after two years of the pandemic.
