The New Jersey Department of Education has yet to release to the public the results of last spring’s student proficiency tests.
Paula White of the education advocacy group JerseyCAN said the data is important to everyone, not just parents and school officials.
“We have to be able to have a statewide conversation about where our children did in the aggregate in our state and certainly part of the power of that conversation is to be able to disaggregate the data by specific demographic groups,” she said, as we try to get a handle on the learning lost during the pandemic.
White said there’s still no definitive word from the state on when the data will be made public.
“We’ve heard nothing from the state, they have not issued a specific date about when they’re gonna publish that data on the state’s website, when are they gonna have conversations about it,” she said, “and so that really leaves advocates and people who really care about the children, all of the children across the state of New Jersey, that leaves us in the lurch.”
White said there is no justification for this delay.
“The tests were administered between April, sort of mid-April to early May, and again it would be different if no results were being made available but the results have been made available at the level of the parent and at the level of the district and so why not at the level of the state?”