The intent to harm vulnerable young people inherent in Christie’s new educational initiative begins to reveal itself. We have to look for this in every move Christie makes: even when his PR buzz makes it look like he’s doing something good for low-income students, the reverse is always true. Using the new federal system of tracking high school graduation rates as an excuse, Christie announces plans to expand the number of assessment tests students get in their high school years.
Where’s the harm in that? Athough this tool will clearly make it harder for our state’s highschoolers to graduate, it comes with no thoughtful companion plan on how to improve education. As one poster comments in a Facebook page on education, it’s unfair to wait until students are in high school to start rigorous testing for academic readiness: those evaluations need to start much earlier in their academic careers.
That Christie’s plan calls for an expansion of testing rather than better instruction.
Michael Romagnino, the superintendent in Cliffside Park, said districts like his with many immigrant children had been “penalized” by the new formula because it is hard to account for all the students who leave. “Kids move to another country or another state, and if there’s no follow-up, those kids are counted against us,” he said.
Ridgefield Memorial High School had the sharpest fall in Bergen County, to 76 percent from 100 percent. Superintendent Robert Jack said the district was proud of its magnet program for special-needs children, but that it hurt the school statistically.