New Jersey Statewide Minimum Standards: Results from the Program's Fourth Year. Occasional Pepers in Education.

The New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) Tests in reading and mathematics were administered for the third consecutive year during the week of March 24, 1980 to approximately 390,000 publicly educated students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 11. The 1979-80 MBS Tests measured the same skills as the 1977-78 and 1978-79 tests. These three tests remained equivalent with respect to the total number of items, the type of items, and the emphasis in each skill area. However, each item on the 1979-80 test was a new item. Results were presented in tables and may be summarized as follows: (1) a significantly larger percentage of students met the statewide minimum standard in all grades and subjects in 1979-80 than during the previous two years of MBS testing; (2) increases were most dramatic in the elementary grades; (3) overall, on all grade levels, there was a 3.4 percent increase in reading and a 6.9 percent increase in mathematics as represented by the percent of students attaining the minimum basic level over the three years of MBS testing; and (4) on the average, all students obtained higher scores. (RL)