UPDATE: PARCC approved as N.J. graduation test

TRENTON -- Georgia and California recently ditched their high school graduation tests and began retroactively awarding diplomas to students who flunked them.

Pennsylvania shelved a new high school graduation test until at least 2019.

New Jersey, however, is moving ahead with plans to continue making students pass an exam in order to graduate, even though the national trend is shifting in the opposite direction and a majority of students who took the proposed test thus far didn't make the grade.

In a move that would effectively make New Jersey a national outlier in education, the state Board of Education on Wednesday is expected to adopt the controversial PARCC exams as the sole test for earning a high school diploma beginning with the Class of 2021.

Students entering eighth grade this school year would be required to eventually pass both the Algebra I and 10th-grade English tests from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams -- something fewer than 50 percent of current high school students have accomplished after two years of testing.

The only other option for fulfilling the testing requirement mandated by state law would be a last-resort appeal to the state.

"They are doubling down on swimming against the tide by having a graduation test and by making it PARCC," said Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a national non-profit group critical of standardized testing.

In the upcoming school year, 15 states are using graduation tests for the Class of 2017, down from 25 in 2012, according to the data collected by the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit that tracks trends and innovations in education policy.

The majority of those states use a homegrown exam, and no state currently relies solely on an assessment from a multi-state testing consortium, such as PARCC, for its graduation exam, the commission found.

The simple fact that New Jersey wants to do something that only a few other states are considering doesn't mean the state is wrong, state education officials said.

New Jersey schools have more freedom to choose textbooks and plan lessons than schools in than many other states, and a strong exit exam guarantees that the state's high school diploma still has meaning, said Bari Erlichson, special assistant to the state education commissioner.

A test like PARCC -- billed as more challenging than prior state exams -- could also curb the prevalence of costly college remedial courses, she told the state board in June.

"How do we ensure that students leave high school with the necessary skills and knowledge to be successful while empowering schools to implement curriculum and instructional programs?" Erlichson said. "New Jersey is tight on outcomes and loose on means."

Erlichson also pointed out that other states with highly regarded school systems, such as Massachusetts, have a graduation test, too.

In choosing PARCC, though, New Jersey would be asking students to pass what has become the state's most controversial exam in recent history, one that few students have earned high marks on so far.

Local school boards, the state's largest teachers union and parents have all protested the proposal. The PARCC tests are too new, the student scores too low and the stakes too high, they say.

"It's very misguided, the idea that a test can measure high school," said Jeff Passe, dean of The College of New Jersey's school of education. "Most states have recognized that it's not a wise thing to do."

Raising expectations

The roots to New Jersey's graduation requirements can be traced to the late 1970s, when states first began requiring students to pass a basic skills test before they could graduate from high school, said Jennifer Zinth, who tracks state policies on exit exams for the Education Commission of the States.

"The idea was that students graduating from high school should be able to demonstrate the so-called minimum competency," Zinth said. "There was concern that, especially in underserved communities, students were not held to even eighth-grade expectations."

New Jersey implemented a basic skills test in the 1981-82 school year and has required high school students to pass a standardized test in order to graduate ever since, as required by a state law.

Most recently, it required 11th-grade students to pass the High School Proficiency Assessment, which tested students primarily on concepts they learned by ninth grade, according to the state.

In 2014-15, New Jersey introduced the computerized PARCC exams, math and English tests for grades 3-11 that were administered in 11 states and the District of Columbia that school year.

Students who graduate by 2020 won't have to pass PARCC if they earn high enough scores on another test, such as the SAT, ACT, PSAT and others.

But the state wants to make PARCC the sole graduation test for the Class of 2021, students entering eighth grade this fall.

Those who don't pass the PARCC exams for Algebra 1 and 10th-grade English would have an opportunity to retake the tests. After that, their only option would be to submit a combination of graded class work, school transcripts and other evidence of their academic achievement through a state appeal process.

"We need to ensure minimum levels of proficiency when that child graduates," Education Commissioner David Hespe said in June. "The way that probably is most successful in New Jersey is to have an assessment."

By improving its graduation exam, New Jersey may able to reduce the alarmingly high rate of students enrolling in remedial courses during the first semester of college, Erlichson said.

Though New Jersey graduated nearly 89 percent of its high school students in 2014, more than 22 percent of first-year students at Rutgers, the state university, were forced to take remedial courses that fall, she said.

At Kean University, nearly 45 percent of first-semester student needed a remedial course. And at Essex County College, which serves large numbers of low-income students from urban districts, 82 percent of students began their college career by retaking courses they were supposed to have completed in high school, Erlichson said.

"We led students and families to believe that they were ready for college when they passed that test when they weren't," Erlichson said. "We led educators to believe that the students were ready for college when they weren't."

Concern about New Jersey's ability to prepare its students for the workforce is valid, said Donna Custard, president of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the chamber's non-profit arm.

The number one topic discussed at a recent summit of more than 500 state business leaders was the need for a quality workforce in New Jersey, Custard said.

"The world is becoming a smaller place, and we need to make sure that our students are prepared to compete not just locally but globally," Custard said.

Opposition rising

The number of states using high school graduation tests has declined for a variety reasons, Zinth said.

Some states abandoned their graduation tests to cut down on time students spend testing or because they raised the bar with new academic standards. Others cited the unpopularity of the exams and lawsuits over their fairness, Zinth said.

New Jersey's Legislature has made no substantial movement toward eliminating the graduation exam, and bills that would temporarily pause the use of a graduation test have thus far failed to win support.

But that hasn't stopped parents, teachers and several local school boards from asking New Jersey to withdraw its proposed new requirements over both legal and educational concerns.

The current state law calls for a basic competency test administered to students in 11th grade. But New Jersey wants to use sections of a college and career readiness test that students will take in 10th-grade or earlier, especially those who are advanced in math.

"However valid that may be as an educational goal, it is a sharp departure from the standard authorized by the graduation statute," said Stan Karp, a director at the Education Law Center, which previously sued the state over graduation requirements for the Class of 2016.

Beyond questions of legality, opponents of the proposal say it will force students to participate in an unproven test -- only six states participated last school year -- that they shouldn't have to take and might not be able to pass.

The new requirements would eliminate students' ability to "opt-out" of PARCC, a popular trend during the first year of testing.

Of those who did test in 2015, only 37 percent would have met the proposed graduation requirement for 10th-grade English and 36 percent for Algebra 1.

In the Class of 2016, the first to participate in PARCC, more than 10,000 seniors resorted to filing a state appeal to graduate, by far the most in the past five years. And those students had the opportunity to use scores not only from PARCC but also the SAT, ACT and other exams before turning to the appeal process.

Though PARCC scores improved in 2016, only 41 percent of students who took the Algebra I exam and 44 percent who participated in 10th-grade English would have met the threshold for graduation.

"The main concern we have with PARCC as a graduation requirement is that students aren't going to graduate," said Susan Cauldwell, a member of parent group Save Our Schools NJ, which has called for a total elimination of graduation exams.

Mark Biedron, president of the state Board of Education, understands the concerns but thinks the proposal has a good chance of winning approval despite vocal opposition, he said.

He is willing to consider adjusting the graduation requirement in the future, if necessary, but thinks students are likely to rise to the challenge.

"I think there's a difference between graduating in New Jersey and getting an 'A' in New Jersey versus graduating in another state and getting an 'A' somewhere else," he said.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.