Commissioner Schundler Spins As Thousands of High Schoolers in NJ Left Without Diplomas
More crimes against the poor and the brown in New Jersey. From Stan Karp at the High School Redesign website (get info here to subscribe):
Between two and three thousand seniors will be denied diplomas this month according to new estimates presented by Department of Education officials to the State Board of Education at its June 16 meeting. While the number is down from the nearly 10,000 students who were told early April that they did not pass the state’s new Alternative High School Assessment, it still represents an unprecedented number of “diploma penalties” imposed on NJ seniors who would otherwise have graduated this June after completing all their course credit and local requirements.
Despite having given a two-year $1.1 million contract to Measurement, Inc, a commercial testing vendor, to manage scoring and data for the new test, the Department did not release complete results or disaggregated data for student subgroups. There was, however, plenty of spin.
Commissioner Schundler claimed that the “process has produced very positive results” and that