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New Jersey State Board Meeting Wednesday — 04/15/09

Work Session: Special Review Assessment (SRA)

Current SRA context
  • The SRA has been around since the late 1980’s
  • The SRA is for students who have not yet passed one or both areas of the HSPA
  • The SRA is state developed but locally administered
  • What has prompted a lot of attention is that in some schools, a majority of seniors graduate via the SRA
  • On March 19, 2008, the State Board adopted DOE’s proposal to improve the SRA by strengthening the SRA administration process
NJDOE progress since 2008:
  • collected data about 2007-2008 SRA usage
  • interviewed students and teachers about the SRA process
  • established SRA Advisory Committee to consider plans for improving the SRA
  • consulted with testing vendors
  • developed plans for 2009-2010

SRA Data

Total number of students using SRA to fulfill graduation testing requirement for one or both content areas

Year # of Students
2004 15,351
2005 15,669
2006 13,288
2007 11,747
2008 11,513

SRA 2007–2008 Highest District Rates

Seniors using SRA to satisfy HSPA proficiency requirement

District Percentage
Orange 62.8%
CREATE Charter 58.9%
Plainfield 59.6%
Irvington 58%
Atlantic City 57.5%
Trenton 54.8%
Camden 50.1%
Elizabeth 43.9%
Paterson 41.0%
Newark 39%
Jersey City 34%

SRA 2007–2008 Highest County Rates

County Percentage
Essex 1862
Hudson 1519
Camden 1097
Union 1080
Passaic 928
Middlesex 928
Bergen 611
Ocean 586
Mercer 523
Burlington 504
Monmouth 357
Cumberland 344

Summary/Findings SRA 2007–2008

  • Decrease in SRA usage by districts from ’07 to ’08
  • SRA based graduation rate in 2008 was 11.5%, an improvement from 11.8% in 2007
  • The number of SRA users has decreased since 2005 due to improvements in curriculum and the move towards high school redesign.
  • Four counties (Essex, Hudson, Camden, Union) account for half of the SRA usage statewide
  • 68% of SRA’s are in math, 32% in language arts literacy.
  • In 2008, 105 schools had SRA usage rates of 10% or more
  • SRA failure rate is approximately 4%
  • A majority of SRA students are taking college preparatory courses.
    • 90% of students who took the SRA have taken Algebra I
    • 86% of students who took the SRA have taken Geometry
    • 71% of students who took the SRA have taken Algebra II
      * Discussion ensued about proper curriculum in districts and whether the curriculum in these courses is aligned with state standards and whether or not it is being taught by qualified teachers.
  • Student achievement in math is at the heart of the SRA issue
  • Students who fail the NJ ASK8 are likely to fail the HSPA
    * This means that districts need to use the NJ ASK8 scores to plan personalized instructional support and intervention for all incoming ninth grade students who failed to attain proficiency on NJ ASK8

SRA Advisory Committee Recommendations:

  • Four three week SRA administrative windows during the school year
  • Schools continue to score student SRA responses, but NJDOE implements a systematic audit process to ensure accurate scoring and to identify abuse of scoring standards
  • Continued monitoring of districts that rely heavily on SRA to graduate seniors
  • More data collection about student performance, course-taking patterns, and other indicators

NJDOE Plans for SRA 2009–2011

  • Stricter controls on administration of SRA performance tasks
  • Use of testing vendor to ensure quality of SRA scoring
  • Continued collection and analysis of data about SRA student population
  • End of course competency tests will replace HSPA
  • Alternative assessment instruments for students who fail the competency assessments will continue to be available.
  • The overall goal is to ensure that students who graduate via the SRA have the same skill sets as those who graduate without using the SRA.

The next State Board meeting will be on Wednesday, May 20th.