by Aiden DeMarsey – Evesham Twp. Board of Ed. Member & NJPI Junior Education Policy Fellow
The state of New Jersey is currently undergoing efforts to reform or eliminate the standards established for high school graduation. Bill A4121, sponsored by a bipartisan group of legislators—Assemblywomen Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Michele Matsikoudis, and Alixon Collazos-Gill—moves to “Eliminate the High School Graduation Proficiency Test.” With increasing scrutiny on the quality and scope of the NJGPA, lawmakers moved to abandon this method of ensuring New Jersey’s graduating high school seniors are evaluated on their educational achievement and professional readiness.
With the bill passing the Assembly, it is currently under review by the Senate Education Committee. While the Senate Education Committee is not scheduled to meet for the remainder of the 2024–2025 legislative session, and a new session is set to begin in January, progress on the bill signals an appetite to change how we evaluate our graduating students.
Not all lawmakers felt this bill was a step in the right direction. Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R–Sussex) stated, “Do not hand out a diploma disconnected from proficiency. I think it’s a huge error.” She was joined by Assemblywoman Aura Dunn (R–Morris), pointing out that the state cannot take actions to fix flaws in testing if the Department of Education (DOE) abandons measuring student proficiency entirely. The differing points of view from our state lawmakers warrant the question: What purpose does a graduation proficiency test serve?
Examinations are a proven function to ensure that students are prepared to advance in their academic or professional careers. Without providing a metric that quantifies student achievement, the state of New Jersey risks allowing students to be unprepared for life post-primary education and to slip through the cracks.
The lawmakers who sponsored this bill are correct that the NJGPA fails to include the necessary factors that provide reflective, well-rounded data, which assess the varied skills that students may have or need. One of the test’s many flaws is its limited scope, which only includes ELA and Mathematics. However, they are wrong to believe that the outright elimination of the NJGPA is the proper pathway forward. Without an immediate supplementary resource, students and staff are left to their individual district policies and standards for graduating students. This leads to a lack of universal proficiency, leaving students in low-resource districts behind.
A bill similar to A4121 is likely to appear again in the next legislative session. With many new legislators championing the value of education, Trenton has a rare opportunity to enact changes to the NJGPA to better reflect the educational needs of today’s students, as opposed to proceeding with the test’s outright elimination.
In the world that the current generation is graduating into, one dominated by social media, advancements in technology such as AI, and the constant spread of misinformation, lawmakers and DOE officials must reanalyze testing standards and what students are to be prepared for after high school.
In reexamining the test’s purpose, a crucial role of the American education system is to produce not just scholars, but educated citizens. A 2018 study from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars found that only 36% of Americans could pass a citizenship test. This failure of the American education system only hurts participation in an educated democracy. How are citizens expected to have an educated opinion if they do not understand the function their government serves?
It is often said that voters make decisions based on their emotions. But what if, instead, new graduation testing standards included civic-based assessments that helped prepare students to make informed political decisions? By teaching and assessing the principles of civics and government, state graduation assessments can ensure that students are ready to enter a ballot box and empower them to become independent thinkers.
The danger of pushing students through the education system is that those who are genuinely unprepared for graduation are underserved and will face more challenges as adults. Most notable to this is the influence that we as citizens have on our government through the democratic process. As a result, the state of New Jersey must not eliminate graduation proficiency standards established to ensure students are prepared. Instead, lawmakers must work diligently to redefine and expand standards of assessment to better reflect relevant needs for graduates. Ensuring New Jersey’s students are well prepared to become active, engaged, and educated citizens is a great start to reforming the NJGPA.
