Senators Oppose GOP Plan For 30% Sales Tax Capitol Comments

Senator Robert Menendez

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), joined a group of Democratic colleagues in introducing a Senate resolution opposing the plan led by Congressional Republicans to impose a nationwide sales tax on all goods and services, which would increase prices for hardworking families by 30 percent.

Superintendent:

Continued From Page 1 full of data points,” Preston said.

With the Start Strong Assessment, students who are entering their new grade level in the fall are tested on material learned at the previous grade level. Although the assessment is similar to the NJSLA, they are slightly different but have the same purpose.

“It’s a smaller assessment, meant to be a fast assessment. It’s about a child’s readiness for the course they’re sitting in currently in the fall. We use this information along with STAAR to make sure of that readiness,” Preston said. “This is the State’s template that they encourage districts to use. Districts should not compare any individual student/school/district Start Strong data to any NJSLA data. Start Strong Assessments were not designed to predict future student performance on the NJSLA, nor was it designed to

Instead of this misguided tax increase, the resolution calls for supporting a tax cut that will help working families and grow the middle class while opposing cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, or cuts to pay or benefits for servicemembers, veterans, or law enforcement.

“As New Jerseyans - and Americans all over the nation - are struggling to make ends meet while the economic recovery continues to take hold, the last thing we need is to create an additional tax burden that will further raise costs and squeeze estimate what score a student would have received if they had taken the NJSLA in Spring 2022.”

Mathematics, Science Supervisor Erin Fedina as well as Language Arts Literacy Supervisor Jane Losinger discussed the data from the previous assessment which showed an estimated number of students who needed more support, some support, or less support.

According to the data, percentages were relatively equal when it came to mathematics. However, for grades 6 and 8, they had a higher percentage of students that need more support. For language arts, many of the grades were above 50% of students needing less support. Grades 4 and 6 fell sightly short with their percentages being in the 40s.

“It’s not as deep and wide as the New Jersey Learning Student Assessment, but we do get the results back faster,” Losinger said about Start Strong. “Really, we have two assessments from the state that function similarly, they are the pocketbooks of hard-working families,” said Sen. Menendez. “This Senate resolution sends a clear message that Senate Democrats from all over the country are standing united in rejecting the misguided approach by House Republicans. Any legislation that cuts vital programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or raises taxes to the middle class is dead on arrival in the Senate.”

The Senators’ resolution opposes the House Republican proposal to impose a 30 percent sales tax on all goods and services, which would raise prices for hardworking families and seniors. The resolution also supports the passage of a different but they do function similarly in terms of what they’re looking at. There’s not much time in between there of actual school time, that we’re actually doing intervention work. It’d about gathering data.” responsible tax cut to benefit hardworking families and grow the middle class, while ensuring that the ultra-wealthy and billion-dollar corporations pay their fair share.

After the presentation, one board member asked if Start Strong was specifically developed to track learning loss from COVID. Preston said not necessarily.

“It’s meant to be a fall anticipatory assessment for kids, especially in districts that did not have their own local assessment. We had one, we had STAAR. However, in the absence of New Jersey Student Learning Assessment being administered during that particular year, New Jersey still had a reporting obligation to the federal government. So they used a fall administration last year of the Start Strong to give back data to the federal government to meet that compliance mandate. The state then decided that they would mandate its administration this year as well as last year. The reason we were given was because that was the decision that was made at the DOA,” Preston said.

Currently, it is unclear whether the state will make Start Strong Assessment permanent every fall. Superintendent Isola gave his opinion, stating he feels the assessment is extremely unnecessary.

Alongside Sen. Menendez in cosponsoring the resolution are Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

“It is duplicating information. Our teachers have the resources. We have the tools to determine student needs very early in the school years, and surgically attack student’s needs. This is an extreme overreach by our (State) Department of Education and I could never have felt more strongly against its assessment being administered. They needed to do something. They were prudent and they did what they had to do coming out of the pandemic or within the pandemic, and I recognize that,” Isola said. “The department is clearly indicated that they’re using it to compare statewide date. Yet they tell us not to use this test in that very way. They have talked two tongues and have sent mixed messaging… I’m not exactly sure where this is going, but to me this educational malpractice by the DOE. We will continue to comply. I will continue to advocate against it. We will continue to utilize the data we get because we’re doing it and what we collect we can utilize and have an optimistic positive approach. Like I always do.”

Several board members shared their thoughts and expressed their agreement with Isola. They questioned what is the purpose of the test if many students regress during the summer. Some members also stated that the assessment is a waste of time and also puts more pressure on students.