NJDOE Assessment Shift: The Public’s Right to Know on Accountability and Comparability

Over the weekend we sent another email to NJ DOE Commissioner Dehmer on NJ’s new testing model.

Federal law requires that all students receive the same test. This is important as this specific testing is meant to determine how well schools are performing in meeting their core mission of educating students. They are supposed to answer the question: Are schools doing an effective job in teaching Math, Science and ELA? Their primary purpose is not to identify individual student needs. While adaptive testing may have instructional benefits, schools already have measures to track this, and shifting the test may create a redundancy while removing a huge method of accountability. In other words, how will the public know if schools are doing their job?

It is important that the public receive clarity and specificity as to the validity and reliability of the accountability measures in place.

Email:

Commissioner Dehmer,

I’m reaching as a follow up to my questions about NJ’s shift to the new testing model.

As you know, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states administer “the same academic assessments to all students” (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2)(B)(i)) and produce results comparable across districts, schools, and years. Additionally, NJSLEDS emphasizes the importance of consistency in reporting and planning.

Based on public press releases the Fall 2025 field test results will not be used for accountability and the 2024 ESSA State Plan was recently approved, these releases don’t provide legal clarity on the model itself.

With this in mind, I would appreciate your response to the following questions:

1. How will your office ensure that an adaptive assessment, which provides different questions to each student based on individual responses, still meets ESSA’s statutory requirement for a “same assessment” statewide, particularly in mathematics? Please provide an on-the-record explanation of the model that ensures this legal compliance.

2. Federal Confirmation: Has your office received written confirmation from the U.S. Department of Education that the specific NJSLA-Adaptive model (including its scoring and comparability methodology) has been explicitly reviewed and approved as being in line with federal comparability requirements?

Thanks for your time and attention. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
John Migueis

These should not be difficult questions to answer and are the exact questions that need to be answered to establish compliance and validity.

Hopefully we will get a response to our email this time and, if we do, we will share the response.

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