NJ ASK stakes raised for teachers

At Manalapan’s Pine Brook School, kids were learning to argue. Students at Ridgeway Elementary in Manchester were urged to log onto game sites. And at Stafford schools, they’ll be throwing pep rallies.

It may not be how their parents prepped for a test decades ago. But readiness for the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, or NJ ASK, is the name of the game at many events and in skill-building exercises being held at schools throughout the state this month, educators say.

The hours of open-ended and multiple-choice math, language and science proficiency testing for third- through eighth-graders are set to begin Monday. The test will continue in four- and five-day schedules separated by grade level through mid-May.

NJ ASK was launched in 2003 after the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. New Jersey applied for and received in February a waiver from the federal requirements, which critics said were too lofty and imprecise.

But a new state school accountability system — and expectations that the scores will be part of teacher and principal evaluations tied to tenure and salary — have raised the stakes yet again, some educators say. They insist, however, that the prep programs are just a supplement to already rich curricula.

“The reality is if teacher evaluation is connected to test scores then, yeah, the stakes are higher for the teachers. I think each year we all feel the pressure,” Pine Brook Principal John Spalthoff said. “But at the end of the day, the stakes are higher because we’re trying to provide the best we can for our most important assets — for our future.”

To that end, about 35 special-education students here meet 40 minutes before the morning bell for the school’s Project Achievement program. The classes were launched after Pine Brook, now considered a focus school in need of improvement, was found to have a significant proficiency gap between mainstream and special-education students. The program at Pine Brook, which cost the district about $8,650, was extended from 10 weeks last year to 15 this year.