New Jersey’s State Board of Education keeps kicking the can on the learning loss crisis engendered by Governor Murphy’s Covid-19 lockdowns. That was the message on Wednesday from a top GOP Senator following the Board’s December meeting.
“New Jersey students in every grade, from preschool to 12, have endured unthinkable developmental harm due to devastating school closings, mask edicts, and the disruptions of virtual learning,” said Kristin Corrado (R-40). “This is a full-blown educational crisis, and the Administration is more concerned with social engineering and partisan gamesmanship.
“Students who have been impacted by the Administration’s decisions and ill-conceived mandates do not get a do-over. Many have already graduated and moved on to college or the job market, and the Governor’s team in Trenton is still doing everything possible to hide the numbers from New Jersey residents,” Corrado continued. “They don’t want the public to know how severely the pandemic has hurt students.”
Corrado zeroed in on a student proficiency presentation based on the grisly results of the state’s Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA).
“The numbers in the report are devastating. More than half the students tested failed the core subjects – English Language Arts and mathematics,” Corrado added. “Students across all grade levels have fallen behind, and the majority of graduating high school students lacked proficiency. To fully understand the gravity of the long-term impact, and to help forge a plan to mitigate the damage and salvage a generation of youngsters, we must have access to all the facts, not just hand-selected ‘highlights.’ The longer the Murphy Administration continues to hide the truth, the more difficult it will be to reverse the damage caused by his policies.”
To make matters worse, as reported this week by the Daily Record, “New Jersey’s 245,000 K-12 students with learning disabilities suffered disproportionately during the pandemic days of remote learning, but just how much is impossible to assess, as the Department of Education has not released crucial annual reports, required by law.”
“Murphy and his loyalists in Trenton must be held accountable,” Corrado said. “There is no excuse for this lack of responsiveness. Dragging this out even longer is only doing more harm to the vulnerable students who were most effected by the Governor’s heavy-handed rules. He needs to realize that New Jersey’s young people are more important than his legacy.”
The 13-member state board “adopts the administrative code, which sets the rules needed to implement state education law. Such rules cover the supervision and governance of the state’s 2,500 public schools, which serve 1.38 million students. In addition, the State Board advises on educational policies proposed by the Commissioner and confirms Department of Education staff appointments made by the Commissioner.”
Governor Murphy recently nominated new members to replace opponents of his radical sex ed curriculum standards.
