State officials are reworking new graduation requirement Thursday, August 23, 2007 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff This fall's incoming high school freshmen were to face a daunting challenge -- if they couldn't pass the state's High School Proficiency Assessment, they wouldn't graduate. No excuses, no safety net. That hadn't been the case for nearly 20 years. A controversial Special Review Assessment had allowed an alternative to the dreaded test, but critics considered that program less rigorous and much abused. It was slated for elimina tion. Now, state officials and others are hedging a bit with the release of yet another report on the potential impact of eliminating the SRA. State Board of Education president Ronald Butcher said yesterday the board is leaning toward "major revisions" of SRA that would still leave a safety net to thousands of students failing the standard high school test each year. "You can't just come in and say to kids, 'There is one shot; take it or leave it,'" Butcher said. "There have to be alternatives." State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy has been more circumspect, but her staff presented the board this spring with a menu of options that included revising the alternative program. Under the SRA, students that fail any section of the proficiency test are given a similar exam but under far looser conditions. They are not timed and often taught -- some say coached -- be fore or even as the test is administered. The teachers score the tests themselves, further opening it to potential abuse. State education officials suggested tightening administration of the test and scoring it outside the district. "We agree that for some stu dents, an alternate assessment one that measures the same skills in a different way is appropriate," said department spokesman Jon Zlock. An estimated 13,000 New Jersey students needed the SRA in 2006 to graduate, roughly one in 10 stu dents who received a diploma that year. As many as three-quarters of students in some urban high schools need the SRA. In the poorest districts receiving heavy state subsidies, about a third of graduates required the SRA to get their diplomas in 2006. But a new report yesterday by several advocacy groups contended problems are overstated and eliminating the SRA would drive more students out of high school, especially in urban districts. "Eliminating the SRA would raise dropout rates, lower graduation rates and disproportionately affect students of color," the report, "New Jersey's SRA: Loophole or Lifeline," said in one part. "This would, almost by definition, constitute bad public policy and would not help improve schools," it said. The chief authors of the report, Michelle Fine of the City University of New York and Stan Karp of the Education Law Center, met this week with top advisers to Gov. Jon Corzine to press their case. "The politics of this are unclear at this point," said Karp, a former Paterson schoolteacher. "We had a frank and open discussion with them, but there were no guarantees." Critics, too, are ramping up their objections to the SRA and saying anything but eliminating it would perpetuate what some have called the state's "urban graduation scam." State Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) has proposed legislation abolishing the SRA and said he was largely not swayed when he met with some of the same advocates recently. "The SRA is still abused and absolutely an invalid source of a high school diploma," said Cryan, the state's Democratic Party chairman. "I don't see how anybody who pays taxes in New Jersey can accept second best, and that's what this is." He and SRA supporters agree broader school reforms are needed. The latest report pointed out stu dents taking the SRA predominantly need it after failing the math section of the proficiency test. "SRA kids are kids who stayed in school, passed all their classes, met all the local requirements," said Karp. "If they are getting to the end of school unprepared, that's what we need to address, not the test." © 2007 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.