Path Past PARCC to Graduate

TRENTON – In December 2018, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division unanimously struck down the state Department of Education’s regulations designating satisfactory scores on two Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) end-of-course exams as a prerequisite for high school graduation.
The court agreed with plaintiffs that the regulation violated state statutes, requiring that only one exam be used for graduation readiness testing.  Statutes also require that the exit exam is given to 11th-grade students while the PARCC requirement involved testing students in multiple grades.
Lastly, the suit made clear that the state has a statutory requirement to allow for some form of alternative testing for whatever form of standardized test it may require.
The decision, while a victory for the large number of students and families seeking relief from the PARCC exam requirement, left thousands of current students with confusion about their pathway to a diploma.
While this year’s seniors, the Class of 2019, still retain flexibility to substitute alternative exam scores or a portfolio in lieu of the PARCC exams in English Language Arts and Mathematics, the Class of 2020, today’s juniors, faced a state requirement that offered alternative only to students who had taken the PARCC exams and received a valid score. 
The two groups that had brought the suit against the state, The Education Law Center and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), reached a court-approved agreement with the state in February providing flexibility for students in the classes of 2019 and 2020.
The agreement postpones the effective date of Appellate Court ruling, striking down the state’s regulations for two years. It then allows students in both classes access to the array of alternatives to the PARCC exam.
The state must still come up with new testing regulations for the class of 2021 and beyond. Those new regulations would have to comply with statutory requirements and provide fair notice to students.
The consternation over the PARCC required exams was in large part driven by the experience of large numbers of students with the exam in the last few years when they were an option but not a required exit standard.
One set of data used in the lawsuit showed that only 9 percent of the students in the Class of 2016 who took the end-of-course PARCC tests scored high enough to satisfy the graduation requirement. About half of the graduates in the class used scores on alternative tests. Most of the remaining students made use of the portfolio appeal process which relies on classwork assessment and transcripts.
As alternatives to PARCC were gradually eliminated, tens of thousands of students faced a problem satisfying the exit exam requirement, putting the state’s high school graduation rate, currently at 90 percent, in jeopardy.
New Jersey is one of 12 states that still require students to pass a standardized test as a graduation requirement.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.