The New Jersey Education Association charges that serious reporting errors in the state's minimum basic skills (MBS) testing program are causing some children to be falsely labelled as failures and are leading to misallocation of State Compensatory Education Aid, which is based on a formula using MBS scores. (SJL)

All New Jersey students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 11 are tested annually in basic reading and computation skills using the New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) Tests. The MBS testing program was initiated in 1976. The former Educational Assessment Program tests were used during the tramsition, and test development activities were begun in 1977.…

Guidelines are provided to assist New Jersey local school districts in improving and strengthening their graduation policies in accordance with the new law and regulations. Basic skills proficiency requirements have been enacted in Chapter 241, Laws of 1979. This law requires that students successfully pass tests in reading, writing and…

The Registered Holistic Scoring Method, which has been used for one year to score the ninth grade writing test of the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test, is described. Registered Holistic Scoring was developed from the previous holistic approach in order to provide more reliable scoring guidelines year after year. Two trained evaluators…

The State of New Jersey has proposed moving its competency test of basic skills from the 9th to the 11th grade, in order to allow for more content learning, more maturity, and more test-taking skills on the part of students. Since vocational students are more likely than other students to score low on the basic skills competency test, having the…

The New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) Tests in reading and mathematics were administered for the third consecutive year during the week of March 24, 1980 to approximately 390,000 publicly educated students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 11. The 1979-80 MBS Tests measured the same skills as the 1977-78 and 1978-79 tests. These three tests remained…

A minimum standards amendment to the New Jersey Public School Act of 1975 requires the testing of public school students to determine proficiency in the minimum basic skills of reading and mathematics, under the auspices of the New Jersey State Department of Education's Educational Assessment Program. To meet the mandates of this amendment, the…

This report consists of data tables summarizing test results statewide for students in grades 11 and 12 who took the New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) test in March, 1987. The MBS assesses minimum skills in reading and mathematics. It is used as the graduation test for students who entered ninth grade prior to September 1985 and have not yet…

This document presents information to trainers already trained in the Registered Holistic scoring method. It has been developed to assist these trainers in training others in the procedures and the criteria of the new scoring method. The Registered Holistic scoring method was designed and field tested for the ninth grade writing sample component…

This Technical Report provides descriptions and summary data that assist measurement specialists in assessing the procedures used in developing New Jersey's High School Proficiency Test (HSPT), the technical qualities of the tests, and the statewide results obtained from its use. The data summarized in this report were collected during the various…

An overview is presented of the New Jersey Department of Education's activities in response to the following mandates: (1) statewide minimum standards be established for communication/computation skills; (2) students be tested annually in these areas to determine progress; and (3) remediation be provided to all students whose performance is below…

This research compared the cut-off scores estimated from an empirical procedure (Contrasting group method) to those determined from a more theoretical process (Nedelsky method). A methodological and statistical framework was also provided for analysis of the data to obtain the most appropriate standard using the empirical procedure. Data were…

This report presents tables summarizing test results statewide for ninth-grade students who took the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in April, 1987. The HSPT consists of reading, writing, and mathematics sections, and must be passed as one of the requirements for a high school diploma. Data include percent passing, mean score, and…

This report summarizes test results statewide for tenth-grade students who took the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in April, 1987. The HSPT consists of reading, writing, and mathematics sections, and must be passed as one of the requirements for a high school diploma. The tenth-grade students who were tested consisted of students…

Describes two state-mandated programs for institutional accountability in New Jersey (i.e., Basic Skills Assessment Program and College Outcomes Evaluation Program), which function through cooperation between the state's higher education agency and its colleges and universities. Highlights research objectives, procedures, responsibilities,…