Today, Wednesday, February 5th, the New Jersey State Board of Education had its monthly meeting where board members and Department of Education staff reviewed regulations to promote wider civic engagement and celebrated successful outcomes from students enrolled in Career and Technical Education programs.

At no point during the meeting did any board member or DOE staff member mention New Jersey students’ grim results, released one week ago, on an assessment called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), considered the “gold standard” for gauging student proficiency levels in math and reading in each state. According to the data, New Jersey students’ proficiency levels have been dropping below 2013-levels despite a 44% increase in per pupil spending. The hardest hit are students from low-income households.

Why are students across the country “stagnating,” as NAEP leaders put it, in their academic progress? And why is NJ’s rank among states falling? (According to analyses, NJ ranks 6th in raw achievement scores among states but, when adjusted for demographics, our ranking falls to #12.)

It is not only the pandemic or smart phones. 

According to a new analysis by Chad Aldeman, former Policy Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, the primary culprit is the “relaxing of school and district accountability pressures [that] helped set off a decline in student performance across the country.

In other words, when the much-despised No Child Left Behind was in effect, researchers “found the law led to noticeable gains in math, especially for the lowest-performing students.” When President Barack Obama signed the new version (called “Every Student Succeeds Act”) in 2015, which alleviated pressure schools felt from state accountability systems, student achievement sank. 

“Holding school systems accountable for their lowest-performing students was working,” writes Aldeman, “until policymakers decided the pressure wasn’t worth it. It may be time once again to ask schools to focus on the academic achievement of their lowest-performing students.”

In fact, at today’s State Board of Education meeting today the agenda included amendments to administrative code called “N.J.A.C. 6A:8, Standards and Assessment.” Many of the changes were house-keeping but others gave clear evidence of how states —not just NJ but everywhere —- are no longer obligated through toothy federal law to be accountable to students, parents, and residents. 

Example:

“The Department proposes an amendment at N.J.A.C. 6A:8-4.1(b)2 to replace “criteria defining adequate school district progress,” which is a reference to the adequate yearly progress requirement pursuant to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. The ESEA [new federal law] replaced NCLB in December 2015 and does not require schools, school districts, and states to demonstrate adequate yearly progress [emphasis added].”

Tim Daly, former head of TNTP and current CEO of EdNavigator, writes in his newsletter today, 

“The only thing more disappointing than the NAEP results themselves has been the state response. Truly a low point for our sector. We are hiding from the truth about what we are providing for our students. Let’s do better, friends.”

The NJ Department of Education did not, as of press time, respond to a request for comment on recent NAEP scores.