TRENTON — Pleasantville High School senior Angela Martinez donned her cap and gown, hugged her family and marched in her graduation ceremony. Like most seniors, she has plans for the future, including college and a career as a nurse.
What Martinez does not have, however, is a diploma.
Though she was allowed to participate in the ceremony, Martinez is one of about 2,900 New Jersey high school seniors who did not graduate last month because they did not pass the state’s alternate high school exit exam, known as the Alternate High School Assessment.
The state Department of Education changed the exam this year and what was once a test nearly everyone passed became a high hurdle to graduation for many. Students in about 65 districts were affected, including Paterson, Jersey City, New Brunswick, East Orange, Newark and Union City, according to the education department.
The changes sent high schools scrambling to help high school seniors find other ways to prove they are worthy of a diploma, and it touched off renewed debate about high-stakes tests.
"It’s so complicated. I passed all of my classes. I want to graduate," said Martinez, 18. "I would like to go on."
The Department of Education retooled the alternate exit exam this year, changing how it is given and how it is scored. The department defends the changes and has allowed students and schools to appeal their cases to the state. This summer those who have yet to pass can do online remedial work and take another crack at the test next month. So far, 1,500 students have signed up to take that route, according to the Department of Education. Should they fail again, they can return to their districts and work on basic skills, get remedial instruction at a community college or attempt to get their high school equivalency diploma.
"We have to tell the world we really do care that kids can read, write and do mathematics when they leave us," Deputy Education Commissioner Willa Spicer said. "Our point is to make sure we have evidence they can do it."Students caught in graduation limbo failed the High School Proficiency Assessment — the state’s typical exit exam — as juniors and then started the alternate exam process. They retook the proficiency assessment throughout their senior year, while also preparing for and taking the Alternate High School Assessment. Unlike the rigidly timed proficiency assessment, which includes a mix of multiple-choice, essay and short-answer questions, the alternate exam asks open-ended questions in math and language arts.
The alternate exam had been criticized for years because students were given an open-ended time frame in which to take it, districts scored the tests themselves and 96 percent of students passed.
Earlier this year, the Department of Education shortened the window in which students take the alternate exam and hired a vendor to score it.
During the first round of tests last winter, thousands of students failed. Scores improved during a second round in the spring, but 2,900 of the 8,000 students who took it still have not passed. Some 100,000 New Jersey high school students graduated this year.
For her part, Martinez, said she was disappointed to learn she did not pass the alternate test. Her brother, Angel Martinez, who is about a year younger, graduated from Pleasantville High last month and his heading to college in South Carolina.
Angela Martinez had hoped to attend Richard Stockton College of New Jersey this fall to study nursing or social work. She has since shelved those plans and hopes to pass the Alternate High School Assessment math exam this summer, attend community college in the fall and eventually transfer.
"I want to start my college career," she said.
The Department of Education has allowed schools to appeal. Students could submit other test scores, such as the SAT or ACT, or portfolios of their work to show they had mastered math and language arts.
The state may allow schools to submit student portfolios next year, but it will not return to the old exam scoring method, said Spicer, the deputy education commissioner.
"I don’t think there’s anybody who thinks it’s OK to do it without any oversight, or let teachers score it themselves," she said.
Some critics have questioned why the state did not phase in the changes and test the new scoring first. Some educators said standardized tests can be particularly challenging for students with limited English.
"The Department rolled out a new high-stakes graduation assessment without conducting a pilot, ran into some unexpected problems ... and yet it was being used for life-altering decisions for young people," said Stan Karp, director of the Secondary Reform Project at the Education Law Center in Newark.
But for others, the issues associated with the alternate test indicate these students are not prepared for college and a career.
"It’s easy to get focused on the process of thousands of kids not passing the exit exam," said Derrell Bradford, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, a pro-voucher group. "That focus can distract you from the real problem: That our students are under-equipped, they’ve been passed along," Spicer said schools need to help struggling students before their senior year and that assistance should start if children fail the state-required eighth-grade test.
"That’s when the intervention needs to occur," she said. "Not in the 12th grade."
