Earlier this week, New Jersey’s Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill proposed a bill to “address the significant learning loss caused by COVID-19-related disruptions to children’s education.” The bill, cosponsored by Republican Nancy Mace of South Carolina, would create the “Expanding Access to High Impact Tutoring Act” to provide students with high-dosage tutoring, considered the most effective intervention to make up for lost learning.

In response, New Jersey Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan “welcomed” the bill: “The New Jersey Department of Education remains committed to addressing the effects of learning loss through evidence-based practices, such as our recently-announced high-impact tutoring initiative, and welcomes the support of various partners in working to accelerate New Jersey students’ learning and help them achieve greater academic succe

Allen-McMillan’s pretense at partnership is undermined by the DOE’s own tutoring initiative, the Partnership for Student Success. As NJER reported earlier, the DOE has recruited 259 of the necessary 5,000 volunteer tutors six months after the program’s inauguration.

Perhaps part of the problem is the DOE’s priorities. Despite the gaping holes in NJ students’ learning, disproportionately suffered by low-income students, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities, the DOE has spent much of its time lowering standards for “proficiency” to create the pretense that our children aren’t at risk while reserving its energy for culture wars.

One example that has gotten little attention: at May’s State Board of Education meeting where the Board approved a resolution lowering the cut score on the high school diploma-qualifying test called NJGPA, members also approved lowering the cut scores on alternative tests—assessments students can use instead of the NJGPA. One of the newly-lowered “passing” scores was for the ACT; in order to pass it in NJ, students must get a 17 in both math and reading.

What is a 17 on the ACT? According to ACT’s benchmarks, a 17 is the equivalent of a student in their first semester of ninth grade. “College readiness” requires a scores of 22 in math and reading. Louisiana, which is ranked 41st out of all states for its K-12 student achievement, requires students to get an 18 on the ACT to qualify for high school graduation.

I am all in on LGBTQ rights. At the same time I’m thinking about what ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis calls “the searing story of inertia, complacency, and lack of urgency on the part of school systems” in the wake of COVID learning loss.

This is a precise description of New Jersey’s sluggish and indifferent approach to helping kids catch up—-which can be done through effective leadership and oversight, as demonstrated by Tennessee,, especially when we have $2.8 billion of one-time federal emergency dollars to work with. 

But we’ve done so little and our children have fallen so far.

So hurray for Rep. Sherrill. We need all the help we can get. But this problem won’t be funded by a new funding stream that comes with no accountability, just like our COVID emergency funds. (Allen-McMillan even sent back almost $4 million to the federal government, which earned her a tongue-lashing from Senate Leader Teresa Ruiz.)

Let’s fight for all students’ rights to feel safe and affirmed. Yet at the same time our primary focus must be on the true catastrophe, the potentially lifelong retardation of our children’s academic and social-emotional growth which only can be addressed by shaking ourselves loose from inertia and complacency.