Approximately 18 months ago, the Department of Education issued and circulated a white paper on the Special Review Assessment (SRA). [See here.] The white paper concluded that the SRA had evolved from a program designed to serve a small number of students who, because of special needs or extraordinary circumstances, could not pass the High School Proficiency Test (HSPA) into an alternate statewide test that enabled approximately 20% of the high school senior students each year to get diplomas, without having passed the regular state graduation test.Question: Why don't we follow Librera’s directive and the recommendation of the D.O.E. (at least the 2003 D.O.E.) and eliminate the SRA?
This evolution went well beyond the original intent, and the present results suggest that approximately one-fifth of our students are unable to meet the state requirement for a diploma. This raises disturbing questions and conclusions about the ability of a large portion of our student to learn and master important content. Today, after 18 months of review and experiences with our summer institutes, our conclusions are no different. The SRA hurts the very students we seek to help, and it must be replaced.
The plans to eliminate the SRA as an alternate route to a diploma should be revisited. Currently, over 13,000 students, more than a third of Abbott graduates and 20% of all New Jersey graduates, receive their diplomas through SRA. Eliminating the SRA before significant and demonstrable improvements are made in secondary programs and supports would be punitive to students and have disparate impact on immigrant youth and youth of color. It would also negatively affect the climate for reform. The existing lack of coordination and alignment between High School Redesign/ADP, SEI, and proposed changes in SRA increases the prospects that fragmented policy initiatives will raise dropout rates, lower graduation rates, and disproportionately affect students of color. This would, almost by definition, constitute bad public policy.
“The SRA is a legitimate concern for legislators and the public,” Davy noted, given the large numbers of students using this option. But she believes that the legislature won’t eliminate the SRA if it is convinced that changes are being made. “We know we need an alternative exam; we just don’t know what it will look like yet,” she said.So we’re not eliminating; we’re tweaking, adjusting, implementing some oversight in the scoring. (Right now the same teachers who instruct the kids grade the assessment; there’s a proposal to move the grading to an external agency.) That's fine. But when do we directly address the fact that N.J.'s public educational model works well for privileged kid but leaves about half of our poor kids without the skills they need to pass an 8th grade test? If we don't admit the system is broken, how can we fix it?
Labels: high school reform, HSPA, SRA