NJ Dept. Of Ed Forms College Readiness Task Force

The New Jersey Department of Education has formed the College and Career Readiness Task Force.

The goal will be to make sure that students are not only graduating from high school, but when they do, they are ready for the real world.

David Hespe, chief of staff at the state Department of Education, says the 21-member task force will be made up of a group of K-12 and higher education practitioners and business community representatives.

“The number one priority will be to define college and career readiness and then make sure that we are doing all we can to make sure that New Jersey has the appropriate graduation requirements and high school assessments in place to evaluate the mastery of these readiness standards.”

The Department of Education is currently evaluating the state’s high school assessments. The task force will discuss the degree to which the HSPA and AHSA exams are appropriately gauging college and career readiness, and make recommendation on how New Jersey should measure college and career readiness in the future.

“That’s the ultimate objective of the task force is to define college and career ready and then determine how best to measure whether our students are graduating from high school with those skill sets.”

Last year, New Jersey adopted the Common Core State Standards, as a first step to ensuring that all students are on track to graduate from high school ready for college and a career. The Common Core State Standards are robust and relevant standards for K-12 math and English language arts developed by a consortium of states led by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers.

“This issue is more than just a state and local issue, its an international issue and we need to make sure that the students are ready for the career world on an international level” said Hespe.

The task force will submit its recommendations to the Department of Education by December 31st, 2011.