Funding Alert

Governor Christie's Transition Team subcommittee on education has recommended that the new Administration revisit the High School Redesign plans left behind by the Corzine Administration.

"The new NJ high school graduation requirements have the potential to ratchet up student achievement in NJ's high schools," says the nonbinding advisory report, "but there are remaining policies to be set and issues to be addressed to assure that all schools and all students can meet these higher expectations."

The High School Redesign plans adopted by the NJ State Board of Education last June included:

a phase-in of tougher high school graduation requirements, including mandatory courses and exams in advanced science and math;

new high stakes exit exams in Biology and Algebra for 2011, with tests in other subjects on the way;

a new 2.5 credit requirement in financial and economic literacy.

The education subcommittee recommends that the new administration conduct a survey to assess the ability of districts to deliver the new standards to all students, and that it revise plans to implement new high stakes graduation tests. It also suggests eliminating the financial-economic literacy requirement in favor of integrating that content into existing courses.

"There has never been a district by district assessment of resources (physical and human) to meet the mathematics and science requirements," says the report, which recommends that districts include such an assessment in their long-range facilities plans for the coming year, "and thus no clear picture exists of the impact of these reforms on schools and district budgets."

On the proposed end-of-course exams, the report recommends a 5-year moratorium on making them a graduation requirement for students. Instead it suggests counting them as 20% of course grades and using the results to improve the consistency of coursework and curricula across districts. It also says the administration should consider delaying implementation of the new tests as a "cost-saving measure," or focusing only on math which it calls the "most urgent" area.

The subcommittee's recommendations reflect concerns about the high school proposals that have been raised by Education Law Center and others throughout the debate leading up their adoption by the State Board. (See Ed Advocates Challenge NJDOE On Secondary Reform Costs.)

The subcommittee's recommendations also overlap with the "NJ High School Redesign Review Act" (A356) introduced by Assemblywoman Mila Jasey and now pending in the legislature. The bill would require the NJDOE to report publicly on the costs and challenges of implementing the new standards and to certify that all students had the qualified teachers, lab facilities, and necessary academic supports before any new exams are given.