What are the New Jersey Student Learning Standards?

The New Jersey Student Learning Standards provide a consistent and clear understanding of what students are expected to learn throughout each grade level. These standards help teachers and parents know what they need to do to help each child reach these benchmarks. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy. 

What is Standards-Based Education? 

Standards are statements of what students should know and be able to do. In New Jersey, standards are written at each grade level and are developed in such a way so that one grade level builds on another. The sequential development forms a foundation for future learning. To best help our children, we need to help all students master the standards for that particular grade level so they can progress successfully to the next level. Student achievement is based on content standards with end-of-year expectations in mind. 

What is a Standards-Based Report Card? 

A Standards-Based Report Card provides consistency in terms of what is expected of students. This report card gives students, parents and teachers information about the strengths and areas of need for individual students as they work through the grade-level standards during the school year. The purpose of grading and reporting in our elementary schools is to accurately reflect what students know and are able to do. 

What should the expectations for my child be? 

The goal for the students is to reach a level of 3 (meeting expectations) by the end of each grade level.

Can a student meet the standard during one trimester and then not meet expectations in subsequent trimesters?

Should the expectations change from one trimester to another as the student moves toward the grade level goals, students can receive a different performance indicator. If trimester expectations have increased, it is possible for a student's performance to not match the elevating levels of expectations.

Some areas of my child’s report card were not evaluated this trimester and the report card shows N/A. Why wasn’t this standard evaluated?

Some standards will be taught each trimester. These standards will be assessed more frequently, and progress will be reported every trimester. The level of difficulty in the task and/or text may change, or the level of text complexity may change, making the expectation more demanding. In other areas, the skill can progress to something more difficult. Other standards require an entire unit of study that may be unrelated to the current topic. In this case, the unit may be listed as N/A for a marking period since the skill may have been assessed at that time. When the standard is taught, the standard is evaluated.