Before students begin their freshman year at Rutgers-New Brunswick, New Jersey’s flagship public university, they take a math placement test called ALEKS, which covers basic arithmetic through geometry, material students supposedly mastered in high school in order to be ready for college-level math. (Only students who scored  4 or 5 on the AP Calculus AB or BC exam are exempt from the exam.) However, just a third of rising freshmen score high enough on ALEKS to enroll in math classes that are part of the core curriculum necessary to earn a Rutgers diploma. This comes as a shock for many students who get into Rutgers based in part on average high school GPAs of 3.8.

In other words, students arrive struggling with foundational math skills despite transcripts saying they’re not struggling at all. Surprised? Don’t be: NJ’s own standardized annual testing shows only 58.5% of New Jersey high school graduates can pass the state’s 10th grade level math test despite a graduation rate of 92%. (Yesterday the state DOE gave a preview of student outcomes on last spring’s tests: About 22.5% of eighth graders reached proficiency benchmarks.)

This discrepancy between NJ’s freehanded distribution of diplomas and students’ poor math skills – which started years before pandemic school closures — has prompted a new report, “False Hope: NJ Kids Aren’t Ready for College,” sponsored by the Collaborative for Student Success and written by Chad Aldeman, who consults nationally with leading organizations working for improvements in K-12 education. “False Hope” explores both how Rutgers is “managing the consequences” for students who aren’t ready for college-level math as well as examining “the more pressing question for New Jersey policymakers,” which is “why so many students are arriving underprepared after spending thirteen years in the state’s public education system.” 

Of course this is not just a New Jersey problem. Grade inflation and the diminution of the meaning of a high school diploma are national problems motivated by what Aldeman in a recent interview called “misplaced compassion” that results in hiding academic problems from families. In NJ we’ve abetted this pattern through a relentless decade-long lowering of how we define “proficiency,” including the requirements for a diploma. (See chart on page 12.) This pretense makes  parents and policy makers feel good — how many times did Gov. Phil Murphy tout NJ as the top state school system in the country? – but, as Rutgers Professor Saiju Patel, who teaches precalculus and coordinates Rutgers’ algebra sequence, told Aldeman, some students “can’t add fractions without a calculator” and can’t manage word problems. “As soon as they see letters, ‘x=,’” she says, “they’re lost,” even though NJ’s diploma qualifying test requires proficiency in Algebra 1. She says “if she gave students today the same exam she gave in the past, roughly 80 percent would fail.”

Aldeman told NJ Ed Report, “the main takeaway” from our research is ”a  kind of bifurcation landing on Rutgers’ doorstep. This is NJ’s flagship university and students are arriving without study skills, relying on AI, missing basic elements of the thinking and learning processes.” There are math labs, the Collaborative’s Executive Director Jim Cowen adds, but students don’t go. Faculty offer generous office hours that remain empty. Aldeman spoke to professors who say expectations have become so low in NJ K-12 schools — no homework, endless retaking of quizzes, high grades just for showing up — that student expectations for their own work and effort have fallen sharply. “ This all goes back to our K-12 education system: Math is sequential,” Alderman says (see more here), and if a student has fallen behind in third grade or even earlier, they continue to struggle without intense intervention. 

And how would parents know? Their kids are getting As and Bs on report cards and historically NJ has been one of the very last states in the country to release results from annual objective assessments, tacitly communicating what the report calls “a lack of urgency [that] weakens the value of the state tests and makes it harder for parents to act on the results.”*

At its heart, Aldeman believes, “the difference between these achievement levels —a graduation rate of nearly 92% versus a math proficiency rate under 60% — is  due to the state’s introduction of alternative graduation pathways.” He’s referring to the multiple assessments students can choose from to earn a high school diploma, which include the diploma-qualifying state test called NJGPA, the SAT, ACT, Accuplacer, or a portfolio. 

What is a “passing” score on these alternatives that is good enough for a diploma?

ACT says students need a 22 to “represent the level of achievement required for students to have a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher…in corresponding credit-bearing courses.” So where does NJ set the bar for the ACT as an alternative pathway towards a diploma?  

A 17. 

According to ACT, you should have an 18 even for open admissions colleges. 

This statewide charade about student readiness for college has a domino effect, Alderman and Cowen note: Many of our future elementary school teachers don’t have sufficient background knowledge in math to effectively teach their students.**

Where do we go from here? NJ has had a belated conversion to the importance of literacy, with new laws requiring student screening and transparency for parents. Maybe, taking a tip from the Collaborative’s “We’re All Solvers” campaign, it is time for math to lose its neglected stepchild status. Maybe Gov. Mikie Sherrill will join other governors in signing the Collaborative’s petition asking the American Academy of Pediatrics to adopt a formal policy, parallel to its guidance on daily reading, recommending a specific weekly amount of numeracy-enriching play for young children, as well as taking simple steps like requiring schools to use  high-quality instructional materials and automatically enrolling students into advanced math courses based on objective assessments. 

In the end, the hard work ahead of New Jersey is way before students get to college, Aldeman concludes:

“The highest-leverage work is upstream in the K-12 system, years before a student ever applies to Rutgers, catching gaps in third grade instead of eleventh, and measuring progress against a yardstick that doesn’t move. New Jersey has spent the past decade doing the opposite.”

*Alderman says “all [NJ’s] pathways set a low bar, which coincides with steep drops in student proficiency since 2014.” When the data made NJ’s school system look bad, the State Board of Education followed the direction of the Education Commissioner and lowered the grade needed to pass the tests, which former Commissioner Chris Cerf called “a statistical parlor trick.” As Charlie Barone explains here, these decisions are not just about policy but also about politics.

**How did we solve this problem? We got rid of the Praxis test in basic skills for elementary school teachers that used to serve as a guardrail. Click on “New Jersey” to see the National Council on Teacher Quality’s rating of “Weak” for our teaching preparation programs and Rutgers’ grade of “F.” (The College of NJ is the only teacher prep program to get an “A”: most NJ programs got “Fs.”)