Everyone loves to hate the NJGPA, the state standardized test that 11th-graders can take as one of multiple pathway to a high school diploma. There is a bill proposal sitting in the State Legislature that would eliminate the NJGPA and that’s fine: only nine states in the U.S. require a high school graduation test and interest groups—NJEA, NJ School Boards Association, NJ Association of School Administrators, Education Law Center— support it. The problem is not the elimination of NJGPA but supporters’ claims that report card grades can serve as a substitute because they give families accurate information about student growth. They are currently pushing the Senate to consider a bill proposal sponsored by Sen. Shirley Turner (Gov. Murphy would surely sign it) during the lame duck session.

NJ Spotlight quotes Sen. Turner:

“’One test should not be the sole criteria to determine whether a student should graduate because there are so many students who do not test well under pressure,’ [adding] grade-point average should be another option to fulfill the graduation requirement. Education Law Center’s [Stan] Karp said GPAs and course transcripts are more reliable indicators of future success than a single exam.”

Turner and Karp are wrong. Report card grades—wildly inflated over the past decade–– are one of the worst ways of judging student proficiency. A recent study from the testing company ACT found rampant grade inflation even as test scores declined. Natalia Wexler gives the example of Los Angeles: “83% of sixth graders in Los Angeles got A, B, or C grades in spring 2022, even though only 27% met or exceeded standards on state and national assessments.”

Everyone hates bad news. Yet is eliminating one of many measurements of student learning really the answer? Not all New Jersey education leaders think so. Senate President Teresa Ruiz told Spotlight she is alarmed by recent statewide test scores and believes there needs to be a “full hands-on-deck, urgent approach” to ensure students are learning at grade level. “There are so many different pathways for graduation that it just becomes a data point for us to create better policies.”

Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, notes there are multiple ways for students to get NJ high school diplomas—SAT scores, Accuplacer scores, portfolios that don’t require any testing—and diplomas should mean something. “We understand that students, if they’re doing their best and if they’re compliant with other aspects of the requirements, we don’t want them to be capriciously penalized. With that said they do deserve to have the information,” White said.

A high school diploma should mean something. NJGPA doesn’t have to be the only indicator of readiness for whatever comes after K-12 schooling but let’s not fool ourselves into believing report card grades give parents and students objective information about anything at all.