Appendix XVI: Assessment of Skills and Competencies of Entering Students (3.19)

Assessment - Entering Students (3.19)

Assessment of Skills and Competencies of Entering Students

Consistent with its statutory mandate and mission, the Board of Trustees of Community-Technical Colleges has endorsed and promoted a host of system planning efforts rooted in recognition of

• the need to extend to an increasingly diverse student clientele access to educational opportunity
• the need to provide a wide variety of instructional and student support services to assist students to achieve their objectives
• the need to enhance the quality of Community College system programs and services.

Accordingly and within this context, the board of trustees approves the following recommendations for implementation of a systemwide program for assessment of the skills and competencies of students who enter a Community College:

1. The Accuplacer computerized adaptive test shall be used for purposes of assessment placing of entering Community College students.
2. Each college shall use, at a minimum, the reading comprehension, sentence skills and the algebra sections of the test.
   1. In order for students to place into ENG* 101 Composition, a minimum score of 88 on Accuplacer Sentence Skills and a minimum score of 83 on Accuplacer English Comprehension must be attained. Students may challenge the outcome of these specific tests by requesting an essay prompt. The prompt will require the student to read, summarize, and respond to a text. It will be scored using the New Jersey rubric.
   2. An alternative method to place into ENG* 101 Composition will be a score of 450 or higher on the SAT Verbal or SAT Essay, or a score of 21 or higher on the ACT English portion or a score of 47 or higher on the ACT English and Reading portions.
   3. All students will begin the Accuplacer Math test with the Elementary Algebra subtest. An Arithmetic score should be available adaptively, for students placing below MAT* 095, to allow selection into an array of developmental courses, which are configured differently at different colleges.
   4. To place out of developmental courses into Intermediate Algebra, the minimum Elementary Algebra score will be in the band between 54 and 66.
   5. An alternative method of placement into Intermediate Algebra will be a score between 500-549 on the SAT Math section, or a score of 18-21 on the ACT Math test.
   6. Placement out of Intermediate Algebra into some, but not all, higher-level courses will require a score of 40 or higher on the College Level math portion of Accuplacer.
   7. An alternative method of placement out of Intermediate Algebra will be a score of 550 or higher on the Math section of the SAT, or a score of 22 or higher on the ACT Math test. These scores would place students into some, but not all, courses above Intermediate Algebra in the system.
3. Students seeking Ability to Benefit (ATB) in order to qualify for Federal financial assistance shall be tested, at a minimum, in the reading comprehension, sentence skills, and arithmetic sections of the Accuplacer test.
4. The Chancellor is authorized to develop an alternative assessment program to pilot the validity of testing instruments such as certain state tests to be used for student academic assessment at the point of entry to a Community College. Colleges designated to participate in an alternative assessment program will be required to follow the standards established for the program and to report the research findings for systemwide use.
5. Students with previous college-level English and/or Mathematics credits with a grade of C (2.0) or better will be exempt from placement testing in that specific discipline, except in situations where specialized accreditation or licensure standards pertain, or in situations where the prior credit is not relevant to the student’s program of study.
6. Resources shall be made available to assist colleges in implementation of the testing program and for appropriate research studies.
7. Working towards common standards and sequences of courses across the system, each college will establish prerequisites at the developmental level for those college-level courses which require writing, reading, and mathematics.
8. All courses offered at the developmental level (courses with an initial number of “0” whose credits do not count towards graduation) must be pre-collegiate, defined as part of a sequence of courses which lead to college-level work. Courses deemed to be basic skills which are not pre-collegiate, as defined in this section, cannot be offered as part of the developmental sequence.
9. Consistent with these prerequisites, entering students who need courses at the developmental level will be strongly advised by the college to enroll during their first year of matriculation in the necessary developmental English and Mathematics courses.

(Adopted May 16, 1988; amended May 16, 2005; amended May 19, 2008; amended May 23, 2011; amended June 20, 2011)