I agree. Kids should not get a diploma unless they pass certain tests.

The HSPA is an 8th grade skills battery that students get three chances to take before they take the AHSA. You can pass the HSPA by only answering 50% of the questions correctly.

The AHSA gives students three MORE times to get a diploma. The students who are still in the "lurch" have had five chances to demonstrate proficiency, and still have not done so.

There's nothing wrong with the test. The test is the messenger and people want to shoot the messenger because they don't like what's being said: that we're passing thousands of kids through high school every year who cannot pass a middle-school level test. But we want to give them diplomas anyway.

State requires a tougher test for high school seniors who flunk their HSPA tests

Friday, July 09, 2010
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The route to a diploma for thousands of New Jersey seniors who flunk the traditional High School Proficiency Assessment test - including hundreds here in Hudson County - just got harder.

For the first time this year, the state has instituted the Alternate High School Assessment test.


Unlike its predecessor, the Special Review Assessment - which virtually every student passed - the ASHA asks more open-ended math and English questions, has condensed the time-frame for the exam, and is graded by an outside vendor instead of local school officials.

The result: Some 2,900 seniors across the state didn't receive diplomas in June and 1,500 of them have signed up for summer remediation to make the grade.

"We have to tell the world we really do care that kids can read, write and do mathematics when they leave us," state Deputy Education Commissioner Willa Spicer said. "Our point is to make sure we have evidence they can do it."

In Jersey City, where roughly a third of the district's 1,578 seniors failed to pass the HSPA, roughly 100 students had to pass the ASHA test this year in order to graduate.

The two-week ASHA exams were given in January and April, and at this point, the district has 22 students shooting to pass the test during the July 19 to Aug. 6 cycle, school officials said.

Ellen Ruane, associate superintendent for the high school division, said the district remains focused on "finding ways to meet the challenge of graduating all seniors through the HSPA test."

Union City High Principal Dave Wilcomes said the ASHA test, because of the nature of its open-ended questions, discriminates against English language learners.

"If I were to take the HSPA in Spanish, I would probably not pass either," Wilcomes said, noting that about 200 of his school's 628 graduating seniors had to take the ASHA test and 20 still have to take summer classes.

Bayonne High School Principal Richard Baccarella was on vacation and other officials there declined to comment.

Hoboken High Interim Principal Albert J. Joy said none of the school's 151 graduating seniors failed the ASHA test.

The Star-Ledger contributed to this story.