Poll: More Tests for Public High School Students?

Governor Chris Christie and Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf want New Jersey high school graduates to be more prepared to continue their educations or become productive employees.

It's pretty hard for anyone to argue with any attempt to boost the brain power of young people or ask them to prove that they have studied hard to earn their diplomas. But Christie and Cerf provided the concept, giving no specifics beyond the news that the program would begin when this year's fourth-graders start high school. The tests will be administered in grades 9-12.

Christie said the proposed exams would ultimately replace the current High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), given for the past decade in 11th and 12th grades as a broader measure of language arts and math skills. The HSPA exams will continue for at least three more years, as will the  the Alternate High School Assessment (AHSA), a controversial oral exam administered to students who didn't pass the HSPA exam.

Proponents of the exam, credited by some as being a fair test for sudents with learning or language difficulties that make it impossible for them to pass written exams. Critics, however, claim the AHSA is nothing more than a social-promotion loophole that gets poor-performing students out of the district while padding graduation rates.  

This week, Christie and Cerf reported a new methodology determines that 83 percent of New Jersey's Class of 2011 will graduate. They said the numbers are more accurate than the last year's graduation rate of 95 percent graduation, which was the highest in the country. The numbers were skewed, the pair said, because the stats were primarily reported by the districts themselves.

Educational experts say that today's auto mechanics need to have the reading comprehension of a college junior to master auto-maintenance manuals that are essentially computer-diagnostics textbooks. The reality is that it takes New Jersey college students an average of six years to graduate. That stat factors in many issues, from taking time to work and pay for college, as well as students needing remedial courses to prepare for the rest of their classes.

What do you think? Vote in the poll and share your comments about the futures of public-school education in New Jersey.