More N.J. seniors expected to get diplomas than thought

More New Jersey high schoolers will get their diplomas this month than seemed likely a couple of weeks ago, but the number who fall short will rise significantly from last year, a state education official said Wednesday.

In the continuing and painful saga of the state's revamped alternative graduation exam, Deputy Education Commissioner Willa Spicer estimated that about 2,200 students will need to retake the test in August. Last year at this time, the number was about 400, she said.

State staffers "have been knocking ourselves out" in recent weeks processing appeals submitted on behalf of students who did not pass all the necessary parts of the Alternative High School Assessment, Spicer said.

The appeals require schools to offer proof that students have mastered basic skills. Between that and allowing some students to retake a portion of the math test, 550 more students passed the math exam and 374 more passed language arts, Spicer said, and appeals are still being filed and processed.

In addition, the high failure rate prompted the state to allow schools to graduate students who have scored sufficiently on certain other standardized tests. Spicer said the number of those students has not yet been reported to the state.

The alternative assessment is a second-chance graduation test for students who have not passed the High School Proficiency Assessment after three tries.

A few months ago, the nonprofit advocacy Education Law Center brought the high failure rate to light. Citing state data, the center reported that of the more than 9,500 students who took all the math-test parts last winter, 34 percent passed, while only 10 percent of the almost 4,300 who took the language-arts sections passed.

The law center and educators blamed the poor results on the way the test was administered, and they faulted the state for not running a pilot program for the test as it has for other exams.

State officials, however, said the main difference was that an outside firm, not the students' teachers, graded the tests.

They said the failure rate indicates that teachers were too lenient.

Earlier this month, state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler told the Senate Education Committee that as many as 4,500 students still had not passed all the required sections of the tests after retaking it in April.

On Wednesday, a state education spokeswoman said that previous figure came from raw data. According to figures provided by Spicer, 2,400 still had not passed the math exam after the April retake, while 1,320 still needed to pass language arts. Department officials said they were unsure how many students that represented because some students take both tests.

As of Wednesday, education officials said they did not know the status of 1,860 math test takers and 946 language-arts test takers. Some of them may be among the students allowed to graduate based on their performance on other tests.

"The bottom line is 2,000 to 3,000 of our most vulnerable students will not get their diplomas because the department mishandled the assessment," said Stan Karp, director of the law center's Secondary Reform Project.

On Wednesday, Schundler and Spicer, who both spoke about the test before the state Board of Education, suggested the difference between this year's results and the previous 96 percent pass rate indicated that in the past students who did not have basic skills were graduated.

Schundler called for improved early assessment that schools would use to get students the help they need sooner.

"If you do that well, that's the solution," he said.

In a separate matter, the state announced Wednesday that it would award $45.3 million in federal School Improvement Grant money to 12 of its lowest-performing schools to help turn them around. Thirty-two schools were eligible, and 27 applied.

Locally, two Camden schools - Cramer Elementary and U.S. Wiggins Elementary - were selected to share in $5.4 million. The district had also submitted proposals for three other schools.

To get the aid, districts must commit to following one of four change models, including closing a school, turning it into a charter, or replacing a principal and at least 50 percent of its staff. Camden choose the least severe option, called transformation. That is supposed to require getting rid of the school's principal and making changes.

In Camden's application for Wiggins and Cramer, various reforms, including considerable staff development, are proposed. However, the application indicates the principals will not be changed because they've been in the job for only for two years or less.

Susan Dunbar-Bey, president of Camden's school board, said she was pleased that at least two of the city schools were funded.

"Two is better than none," she said.

The state will award the rest of its $66.7 million in federal aid in the next school year.