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06-30-2010, 08:41 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-30-2010, 08:44 AM by RespectableGent.)
The State of New Jersey has been caught running a phony diploma swindle on tens of thousands of its citizens:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opini...8ab91.html
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Great post, RG. This deserves to be set out in full. There are people in jail right now for less than what these New Jersey scammers have done.
N.J. diploma scam revealed by stunning new test results
Quote:Posted: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
When the State Board of Education elected to "reform," not eliminate, the Special Review Assessment, or SRA, in 2009, I and others who opposed this backdoor route to a diploma were disappointed. The SRA was a running joke. About 13,000 disproportionately minority students annually were using it to graduate after failing one or both portions of the standard high school exit exam as many as three times. This ballooned the state's graduation rate at the expense of the credibility of a New Jersey high school diploma. In 2008, it also fooled about 11,000 students into believing they had mastered high school skills, when nothing could have been further from the truth.
So I was astounded to discover that almost all of the 10,308 students who took the SRA's successor, the Alternative High School Assessment, or AHSA, failed it in 2009. In 120 districts, not one student passed the language arts portion of the AHSA. If you don't know the history, or you're a member of the school cartel's status quo, you might think something was broken with the new AHSA. You'd be wrong.
The three-layer cake that is New Jersey school failure is assembled as such:
First, students have three chances to pass the standard High School Proficiency Assessment, or HSPA, a test former commissioner Lucille Davy described as "middle-school level." Moreover, students can pass the language arts and math portions by answering just 47 percent and 50 percent of questions, respectively, correctly. To review, students get three chances to score a 50 percent on a middle-school level test before they take the AHSA.
Second, the State Board of Education ordered an examination of the course work of students who took the then SRA in 2009. Since 68 percent of SRA takers used it because they failed the math portion of the HSPA, one might imagine they had gaps in their course work. As the study found, however, the opposite was true. The Department of Education discovered that 90 percent of SRA users took, and apparently passed, Algebra I. A stunning 86 percent took and passed Geometry, while 71 percent and 91 percent took and passed Algebra II and Biology, respectively.
These students, who couldn't pass the state's "middle-school level" exit exam with a score of 50 percent, had taken and passed these "rigorous" courses. When pressed on this obvious, suspicious, disconnect between course work and content mastery, a then-assistant commissioner of DOE offered, "School districts can call a course anything they want."
Lastly, the State Board of Educaton changed two aspects of the alternate route. They changed the name to the AHSA - the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig - and they changed when and how the test was given and who could score it. The original SRA process was bankrupt. Teachers "coached" students on their answers, essentially giving them as many tries as it took to pass. Directions in the new exam booklets actually assert that "once a student begins testing, the teacher or administrator who is administering the ASHA may not assist the student in any way."
So it's shocking that, when conditions around the alternate route are changed to ones where teachers can't coach their students, 11,000 largely fake diplomas in 2008 became almost the same amount of failures in 2009. In many ways, the ending of this morally indefensible diploma-mill charade is a victory for New Jersey's students. The truth of how badly they have been treated is now known.
The Education Law Center, or ELC, ironically a key if out-of-touch champion for the status quo, notes Abbott district students - who attend some of the country's most expensive schools - comprised only 15 percent of state graduates, but were 42 percent of total SRA takers in 2006. What a former commissioner of education called the "urban graduation scam" had become a trick to make urban schools look better … but who knew how utterly sick the whole process had become, or how large the lie had grown?
The ELC has asked the commissioner of education to set aside these results. They want a "fix" for results that illustrate how broken our K-12 system has become. The commissioner, and the governor, should not give it to them. The integrity of the state's entire K-12 system is at stake. Much like our budget woes, a line in the sand must be drawn. We have a serious problem in our schools. One of betrayal. One of expense. And one far more dire than the New Jersey Education Association will have when it must change its advertising because we no longer give thousands of students a diploma that has absolutely no meaning.
Derrell Bradford is executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, or E3, which supports more schooling options and vouchers.
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07-01-2010, 03:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-01-2010, 03:26 AM by ham.)
Quote:About 13,000 disproportionately minority students annually were using it to graduate after failing one or both portions of the standard high school exit exam as many as three times.
Go New Jersey, go!
Don't let closeted racists stop the progress of our fantastic brothers of color, whom the evil white race did so much harm to; WE OWE THEM MORE THAN THAT!!!!!!
A.A Mole University
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Ph.D Millard Fillmore
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So what does that asshole Gov. Chris Christie have to say about this. Thats the same jackass who signed that "diploma mill law." And now his own state is caught running one.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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07-09-2010, 10:31 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2010, 10:35 AM by RespectableGent.)
Yep. This needs to be set out in full to Gov. Chris Christie.
The State of New Jersey is running a phony diploma swindle on tens of thousands of its citizens.
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