At a time when the Secaucus school district should be gearing up for state testing next April, school officials find the district caught between conflicting state and federal rules.
“The last we’ve heard is that the state is planning to scale down some of the tests,” said Schools Superintendent Constantino Scerbo. “But at the same time, the federal government wants to expand testing. We don’t know what is expected of us.”
Gov. Jim McGreevey has pushed ahead with his 2001 campaign promise to cut back on the expanded testing planned for by the Whitman Administration.
The Whitman administration had put plans put in place that would require students in schools throughout the state to be tested in more areas. Currently, schools test students in writing, reading and mathematics at three grade levels. Under proposals set in place during Gov. Christine Whitman’s administration, seven more areas were to be added.
McGreevey, who ran his election under a “back to basics” banner, said he would not implement the increased subjects, instead asking the state to continue testing writing, reading and mathematics.
But this year, Republican President George W. Bush has pushed for increased testing in the schools, leaving school districts like Secaucus scrambling to determine what direction teachers should take in preparing students.
“The federal government wants to increase testing around the country, but as of last week, we have still not been directed,” Scerbo said.
The governor has asked several districts in other parts of the state to take part in a new kind of testing that involves “hands-on tasks” and long-term projects to determine if schools are providing students with an adequate education.
If the pilot tests or “performance assessments” prove successful, districts throughout the state would be required to add them to the multiple-question tests currently taken. These would be phased in over five years.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush has called for a renewed emphasis on “accountability.” He is seeking to have students tested in every grade from kindergarten to 12th. Students in New Jersey are generally tested for the state in the fourth, eighth and 11th grades.
Scerbo said that like most school districts around the state, Secaucus had hired additional staff to prepare for the expected testing
“Take World Language [requirement],” he said. “We had to hire someone on an elementary level to teach a language.”
Scerbo said districts were required to select a language as the primary world language for student study.
“We selected Spanish and had to hire an elementary teacher to prepare our students,” he said.
The school district also altered its own testing to adjust to the expected changes in the state, and that came at a cost as well. Two years ago, Secaucus school officials spent $20,000 – or about twice what it has spent per year in the past – to institute the Terra Nova test, a test administered by McGraw-Hill.
Scerbo said the district has been seeking a test that more closely resembled newly instituted tests given by the state so that school officials can better evaluate its students, better prepare them for the state tests, and align student evaluation with the state’s Core Curriculum standards.
Scerbo said the board moved to make the change based on two problems the district has had with the old test, noting that the district needed a test that is sensitive to what is going on with the state tests.
Increasing testing
While the state has been aggressively seeking to increase testing to gauge where students stand in relationship to other students within the state, federal legislation passed in the mid-1990s has required districts to run achievement tests. The state’s effort to have districts meet newly implemented Core Curriculum standards pushed districts into still more testing. Two years ago, the state began a pilot program that changed the nature of testing students in the 4th, 8th, and 11th grades. The GEPA is one part of a more rigorous testing program being phased in by the state to match new state curriculum standards adopted in 1996.
Now with new federal standards looming and the state dictating rules that seem opposite of federal mandates, Scerbo said districts are struggling to prepare. But even state tests are not certain. Will the state require testing in third, fourth or fifth grades? The district doesn’t know.
“Here we are in the middle of November and we still don’t know what kind of test we are going to have to administer next April,” Scerbo said. “Will the state ask us to cut back or test grade three? We don’t know.”
In the past, despite federal regulations, districts only had to deal with the state poking its nose into local districts.
“For now we’re going to continue the way we always have,” he said. “We’ll see what happens later.”