Delivered to Senate Education Committee, June 19
To reclaim the promise of the American education system AFTNJ supports Senate Bill 2176 and strongly urges the Senate to include language for a moratorium on all consequences connected to the testing program until the study is concluded. New Jersey’s assessment program is one of high stakes not only for teachers, but for administrators, students, schools, neighborhoods and entire districts. The assessment tools that have been or currently are being designed to identify strengths and weaknesses of an individual student may also identify programmatic gaps in curriculum for schools and districts. However, the results of these assessments have been extended to make additional high stakes decisions that they were not designed for. In fact, the assessment developers will overwhelmingly agree that the current assessments were not designed to evaluate staff or close down schools. To continue to use these assessments to make such decisions until the task force releases their final report only adds to the perception that the state’s educational agenda is to privatize schools, destabilize communities and to break unions. We urge the establishment of the task force accompanied by a moratorium on consequences of high stakes testing.
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