This just in from Save Our Schools New Jersey, from its Facebook page:
BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!!
NJ Appeals Court strikes down NJ’s PARCC-based high school graduation rules!!!
From Education Law Center and ACLUNJ
NJ Appeals Court: “We hold, therefore, that to the extent the [NJDOE] regulations required testing of non-eleventh-grade students, they are contrary to the Act and are invalid.”
NJ Appeals Court: “However, the [NJDOE] regulations violate the Act to the extent they specifically authorize multiple tests administered in grades other than the eleventh grade.”
“the Act compels DOE to provide for alternative methods of assessing proficiency other than through PARCC testing or any other standardized testing process.”
“We hold N.J.A.C. 6A:8-5.1(a)(6),-5.1(f) and -5.1(g) are contrary to the express provisions of the Act because they require administration of more than one graduate proficiency test to students other than those in the eleventh grade, and because the regulations on their face do not permit retesting with the same standardized test to students through the 2020 graduating class. As a result, the regulations as enacted are stricken. To avoid disruption in
any ongoing statewide administration of proficiency examinations, we stay our judgment for thirty days to permit DOE to seek further review in the Supreme Court.”
Full opinion available here: https://www.njcourts.gov/attorneys/assets/opinions/appellate/unpublished/a0768-16.pdf?cacheID=tmUepTY&fbclid=IwAR1ifXkDTOAOuplr8lI6cnVQNncJ9xdkNoER9LkXHjEYPHPwD-pLS7KF9bU
We will post additional information as it becomes available.
Happy New Year!!
THANKS TO THE EDUCATION LAW CENTER FOR FIGHTING AND WINNING THIS CASE.
Standardized tests should never be used as a graduation requirement as they are based on a bell curve and those at the bottom of the bell curve will always fail, and they will always be the most disadvantaged students.
New Jersey is one of only six states that still uses PARCC. This test has standards more rigorous than NAEP. It is designed to fail most students. DUMP PARCC!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The fascist, greedy, autocratic billionaires will fund appeals in an attempt to reverse this verdict. Count on it.
Unfortunately, when they dump PARCC across the board they will probably just slap a new name on it (NJ blah, blah). It will be essentially the same test. I hope I’m wrong but this is how it usually goes. The public is clueless.
I have heard that the link in this post doesn’t work.
I copied the NJ SOS FB page announcement. When I googled, I did not find an article.
Trust me.
No need to reinvent the wheel. NJ had the perfectly good HSPA hisch exit exam when my kids were going thro [classes of ’05, ’07, ’10] — based on the perfectly good NJ Core Curr Stds which were superior to the CCSS – they can dump that baggage while they’re at it. We were always in top 5 ed-performing states pre-“accountability” scams anyway. All this garbage was intended for was to make it easy for privatizers. It accomplished that, as well as making life miserable for everyone involved.
Just what advantage is gained by declaring so many children failures and essentially throwing them out the door? What’s that adage about beatings continuing until morale improves?
A perfect question for so many: Bush, Obama, Trump, Duncan, King, DeVos….
I hope MD will follow with the graduation requirements. We still have PARCC and the evil Common Core and PARCC is our grad requirement. The MSDE is looking at a “new” test….PARCC rebranded (New Meridian). As long as we have Gov Hogan (just reelected) appointing the likes of Chester Finn and Andy Smarick to our state BoEd, we will forever be tied to this nightmare. The private schools in our state are filled to capacity with families fleeing the testing/common core disaster.
It’s kind of fun watching the cockroaches scurry as their roach motel collapses.
well said!
LOL. Happy New Year, SomeDAM!
Very good news. Parental opposition to PARCC and any replacement is crucial.
The judge said that the PARCC exam violates New Jersey law since it was only given once. The law states students should have multiple opportunities to pass an exit test. I hope New Jersey scraps testing or makes its own test. We should stop buying inappropriate tests designed to make public schools look inadequate. We should stop playing the rigged “reform” game while enriching testing companies. This is all part of the destroy public education plan. http://nj1015.com/parcc-out-in-2019-nj-court-says-graduation-tests-violate-law/
Thanks for the link! It explains that the legal issue wasn’t the use of a summative assessment designed to spread students on a bell curve, it was that PARCC’s regulations conflicted with the State’s laws requiring that standardized graduation tests be administered in 11th grade, that re-takes be allowed, and that an alternative assessment be put in place to offer those students who failed the test to complete an “alternative assessment”. It was telling that the court was silent on the issue of whether the test discriminated against minorities and Latina students…
Make no mistake, the court ruling is a victory– albeit a narrow one– for those who oppose the use of high stakes tests… but the months ahead will determine if it is a real victory or a Pyrrhic one. From what I’ve read, NJ’s legislature has become a deeper blue and with Chris Christie gone it might be possible for NJ to scrap testings altogether…. but it is also possible that the legislature could change their laws to align with PARCC— which would solve the court’s problem with PARCC but do nothing to help public education.
And, ofc, PARCC spelled backward is. . . .
I like retired teacher’s user-friendly link – gonna quote from it, as PARCC regs breach NJ law in several ways:
“state law [requires] that a graduation test be administered in 11th grade. The PARCC regulations, on the other hand, require a language arts test in 10th grade and an Algebra I test in any year.”
“The state law requires a single graduation test for 11th grade students, but the PARCC regulations require multiple end-of-course exams.”
“PARCC regulations do not allow students to retake the exams or provide non-standardized-testing alternatives in the way the law requires”
A thirty day stay is a win? I hope so.
Using completely invalid results of onto-epistemological error and falsehood filled standardized tests is absurd, insane, unethical, unjust and downright effin stupid.
I wrote some analysis of yesterday’s decision here:
It is good news… in particular for those who refuse testing, as the Appellate Division held that those who have not tested by senior year must still be offered non-standardized test based means of proving that they’ve met the criteria for obtaining a state-endorsed diploma (see p. 19 of the opinion).
Now it will be interesting to see how the State responds. To the commenter above who noted that our all-Dem government in NJ might help us get something productive done… I am not particularly optimistic that we can fix this with a legislative solution, as our legislature is controlled by Christie-aligned DINOs who pulled fun stunts like helping Christie to stack our State Board of Education with pro-charter/pro-testing appointees during Christie’s last few months in office.
We in NJ use a ‘group’ test (PARCC) to determine an ‘individual’s’ ability to graduate–graduate meaning ‘enter into starting anew’? College? Trades? Programs for developmentally disabled?
Too many variables that could be stacked in favor or against the individual
testee on given days of testing.
This is a win. A single test PARCC (which is not used in 44 other States for obvious reasons) should not weigh more than dynamic evaluation.