New Jersey Court Rules Against PARCC for Testing High School Proficiency
The New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) has run awry of its own proficiency testing statutes in trying to use PARCC tests for that purpose. Such is the determination of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, according to this December 31, 2018, ruling.
The appellants in the case are the Latino Action Network, the Latino Coalition of New Jersey, the Paterson Education Fund, the Education Law Center, and the NAACP New Jersey State Conference. The respondents are the New Jersey State Board of Education and Kimberley Harrington, Acting Commissioner, New Jersey DOE.
In its ruling, the court reminded New Jersey DOE of its own, pre-PARCC-established regulations regarding proficiency testing, the heart of which is as follows:
Enacted in 1979, the Proficiency Standards and Assessments Act (the Act), N.J.S.A. 18A:7C-1 to -16, requires DOE and the Board to “establish a program of standards for graduation from secondary school,” including “a statewide assessment test in reading, writing, and computational skills . . . .” …In 1988, the Legislature amended the Act to provide that the test “be administered to all [eleventh] grade pupils and to any [eleventh] or [twelfth] grade pupil who ha[d] previously failed to demonstrate” proficiency. N.J.S.A. 18A:7C-6. Local boards of education must now provide remedial instruction to students who do not meet the State proficiency standards by the end of eleventh grade. N.J.S.A. 18A:7C-3. “Any [twelfth] grade student who does not meet” the “State and [school] district examination standards for graduation[,]” but “has met all the CONTINUE READING: New Jersey Court Rules Against PARCC for Testing High School Proficiency | deutsch29
