New Jersey’s redesigned spring tests show 51.1% proficiency in English language arts. Mathematics proficiency is 41.7%. The results establish a new baseline for judging student performance.
The Department of Education’s November presentation cautions against directly comparing the 2026 English and math results with earlier years. Standards, test format, performance levels and definitions of proficiency changed together.
That qualification matters for Cherry Hill families reading statewide headlines. Similar percentages in different years do not, by themselves, establish that learning stalled when the assessments and proficiency thresholds changed.
The presentation identifies 2026 as the first administration of the adaptive English and mathematics assessments aligned with New Jersey’s 2023 learning standards. It separates grade-level achievement tests from graduation-readiness testing, English-language proficiency testing and alternate assessments.
The statewide figures describe the share of tested students meeting the new proficiency standard. They are not Cherry Hill’s district results and do not establish the performance of an individual school or student.
Catherine Carrera of NJ Spotlight News reported substantial gaps by race, disability and economic circumstances in the latest results. Her coverage also described board members’ questions about the effectiveness of academic-support spending. Those questions do not establish that a particular program caused the statewide outcomes.
Locally, Cherry Hill’s 2025–26 year-end goals report says the district conducted quarterly reviews of literacy, mathematics and science data at elementary and secondary levels. Curriculum supervisors met with administrators to examine benchmark results and develop school-level action plans.
The report describes those local benchmarks as part of an ongoing instructional review. It says the district established baseline data for eighth-grade Algebra I readiness across all three middle schools and tracked participation in mathematics benchmarks.
It also describes universal screening and staff training in New Jersey’s tiered system of student supports. According to the report, those efforts are intended to identify needs early and coordinate additional help.
The report places this work within the district’s 2025–30 strategic plan, which sets longer-term proficiency targets for mathematics, literacy and science.
These local processes provide context for how Cherry Hill evaluates learning, but they are not interchangeable with the statewide proficiency percentages. Participation in a benchmark is also a different measure from the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency.
For families, the useful distinction is between the state’s new assessment baseline, district-level results and an individual child’s performance. A discussion of needed academic support should identify which measure is being used and retain the state’s warning about comparisons with earlier tests.
