In New Jersey, students who flunk the state's exit exam can still receive a high school diploma if they earn passing marks on a series of performance assessment tasks drawn up by the state. Last year, 6100 students-nearly 9 percent of graduates-got their diplomas this way. Twenty-two schools in poor urban districts awarded at least 30 percent of their diplomas through the performance assessment process; five schools issued more than half of their diplomas this way. School officials defend the option as important for students who test poorly or need extra help, but Paul Reville of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform notes "You could argue that this is going back to essentially a two-tiered, tracked system. That was precisely what the standards movement was trying to move away from." It is impossible to determine whether the performance assessment is equivalent to the state tests because New Jersey officials refuse to release any sample performance tasks for security reasons. For details, see "Special Program Gives Kids Another Chance to Pass," by Deborah Yaffe, Gannett State Bureau/INjersey.com, September 2, 2001, http://www.injersey.com/news/story2000/0,20905,440661,00.html
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New Jersey