As of today, seven state education departments have not released  statewide standardized assessment scores for school year 2023-2024. One of those states is New Jersey. The other six are Arkansas (which has a new test and just set passing scores), Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. Last year the New Jersey Department of Education didn’t announce statewide 2023 test scores until December 6th, eight months after students took them.

Two questions:

• When will the DOE have their annual public presentation of the results from last spring’s New Jersey Student Learning Assessments? 
• Does it matter that New Jerseyans get the results so late?

First, in an emailed response to a query from NJ Education Report, DOE Director of Communications Laura Fredrick wrote, 

“Districts received their 2024 NJSLA individual student reports last month, and are required to report results to their local boards of education by November 12. The NJDOE plans to publicly release statewide results in due course.”

Indeed, districts received NJSLA scores from last spring in September (rather late for teachers to make data-driven adjustments to instruction) and parents received their individual children’s scores in October (rather late to remediate). According to DOE rules, school districts must make public presentations of scores by November 12th (notably, after school board elections).

But, presumably, the public will not get the 2023-24 big picture until one of the next two public State Board of Education meetings on November 6th or December 4th, four months before the administration of 2024-25 tests.

Does it matter that the DOE delays public notice compared to 42 other states and the District of Columbia, who release statewide test scores starting in July?

Chad Aldeman, formerly of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab, says “yes,” explaining that delays of this magnitude  “are political, not technical” because  “it’s possible to deliver high-quality assessment results, at scale, much faster than what states are doing right now.” For comparison,  ACT, SAT, GRE, and AP test results come out within two weeks after students take assessments. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation says, “when states are slow to release test scores, it implies that these data are unimportant,” the wrong message to send to the public because “this data can help policymakers make decisions on education spending, help teachers develop an accurate picture of their students’ progress, and help parents understand whether their child needs additional academic support,” like enrolling their children in “summer learning opportunities to help them catch up.”

In other DOE news, the State Board will hear public testimony on November 6th regarding proposed changes to the way the DOE evaluates whether a school district is high-performing. These changes will put more weight on student growth measured by standardized tests, unlike current rules that equally weigh growth and student proficiency levels. Post-pandemic, this emphasis on proficiency levels has led to many districts not receiving that coveted “high-performing” label; at last month’s State Board meeting, of 50 districts who completed the lengthy accountability process (see here for an Explainer), only 14 out of 57 school districts were rated high-performing because student proficient rates were too low.

Members of the public must register to give testimony on those changes by October 31st.