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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

THE UNDER SECRETARY

June 26, 2003The Honorable William L. LibreraCommissioner of Education New Jersey Department of Education100 River View PlazaP.O. Box 500Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0500Dear Commissioner Librera:I am writing to follow up on Secretary Paige’s letter of May 8, 2003, in which heapproved the basic elements of New Jersey’s state accountability plan under Title I of theElementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child LeftBehind Act of 2001. I join Secretary Paige in congratulating you on New Jersey’scommitment to holding schools and districts accountable for the achievement of

all

students.I appreciate New Jersey’s efforts to meet the Title I requirements and your responsivenessto making changes as a result of the external peer review of New Jersey’s accountability plan.With regard to several issues in New Jersey’s accountability plan, the Secretary hasexercised his authority to permit the orderly transition from requirements under theImproving American’s Schools Act to NCLB. Assuming we are in agreement on theseissues, New Jersey’s accountability plan is fully approved.

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New Jersey has the capacity to produce a four-year graduation rate at the school,district and state level, but not at the student subgroup level. As it transitions to afour-year graduation rate that can be disaggregated, and for purposes of calculatingwhether a school or district makes AYP using the ‘safe harbor’ method (§200.20(b)), New Jersey may use its dropout rate for the 2002-03 school year. For 2003-04, NewJersey may create a one-year graduation rate, for safe harbor purposes only, that can be disaggregated. As additional data become available, the number of years includedin this graduation rate must be increased. Further, once the four-year graduation ratecan be fully disaggregated, it must be used. In building the new graduation rate, please ensure that all students receiving any type of diploma or certificate areincluded in the denominator, but that only students receiving a regular high schooldiploma are included in the numerator. One available, please provide information to

Page 2 – The Honorable William Librerathe Department explaining how the graduation rate will be incorporated in adequateyearly progress (AYP) determinations (i.e., what rate does a school need to achieve tomake AYP on this element?).

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New Jersey proposed to include students with the most significant cognitivedisabilities in its accountability system based on their performance on an alternateassessment that would hold those students to different achievement standards fromthose all other students are expected to meet. All students with disabilities must beincluded in a State’s accountability system. Moreover, §200.1 of the final Title Iregulations requires that all students be held to the same grade level achievementstandards. In addition, §200.6(a)(2)(ii) of those regulations states that “[a]lternateassessments must yield results for the grade in which the student is enrolled.”We have issued new proposed regulations that would permit a State to use alternateachievement standards to measure the achievement of students with the mostsignificant cognitive disabilities (refer to the Federal Register notice of March 20,2003). For this transition year only, while these proposed regulations are beingfinalized, New Jersey may use alternate achievement standards for students with themost significant cognitive disabilities who take an alternate assessment to calculateAYP for schools and districts. Those alternate achievement standards must be alignedwith New Jersey’s academic content standards and reflect professional judgment of the highest learning standards possible for those students. Moreover, the percentageof students held to alternate achievement standards at district and State levels may notexceed 1.0 percent of all students in the grades assessedWe note that this transition policy is not intended to preempt the rulemaking processor the standards and assessment peer review process, and that the final regulationsmay reflect a different policy and/or different percentage. This allowance also doesnot constitute approval of New Jersey’s alternate assessment.Approval of New Jersey’s accountability system is not also an approval of New Jersey’sstandards and assessment system. As New Jersey completes the requirements of thetimeline waiver it will need to document that the conditions of that waiver have been met. New Jersey’s Core Curriculum Content Standards in the areas of language arts literacy,mathematics and science were reviewed, revised and readopted in July 2002. Also, NewJersey has developed new third and fourth grade tests, administered for the first time inMay 2003. These standards and assessments will need to be submitted to the Departmentfor peer review and approval.As required by section 1111(b)(2) of Title I, New Jersey must implement itsaccountability plan during this school year to identify schools and school districts in needof improvement and to implement section 1116 of Title I for the 2003-04 school year,including arranging for public school choice and supplemental educational services. If,over time, New Jersey makes changes to the accountability plan that you have presentedfor approval, you must submit information about those changes to the Department for approval, as required by section 1111(f)(2) of Title I.