Standards are slipping in the Garden State, Save Jerseyans.
Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-24) summarized a NJ Education Report story over on X; long story short, the N.J. Department of Education is changing state standards, and one of the changes is objectively insane.
“Most states define ‘chronic absenteeism’ as missing 10% of the school year. NJ used to use 25%: 45 days out of 180. The new NJDOE threshold? 90 days out of 180,” explained Fantasia. “A student now has to miss HALF THE SCHOOL YEAR to count as ‘chronically absent’. And the NJDOE rationale for this change??? Something they call ‘data volatility.’ In plain English: the numbers looked BAD. So instead of fixing the problem, they removed the kids who move or transfer so the rate looks clean on paper. But these are the students most at risk because they are the ones facing instability: housing moves, family disruption, inconsistent transportation, mid-year school changes, and all the barriers that make attendance hard.”
“These are the kids who need attention, not deletion! They didn’t solve chronic absenteeism, they made thousands of kids disappear from the metric,” added Fantasia.
