New Jersey Student Learning Standards
The New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (NJCCCS) were renamed in 2014 to be the New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS).
What should be taught and at what grade level should it be taught? Those are the key questions answered by the NJSLS. National organizations in areas of mathematics and science, for example, have taken their stance on what should be taught. Since then, there has been a movement across the country for states to develop their own standards which by and large are modeled after the national recommendations.
New Jersey adopted its first set of standards in 1996. The seven academic areas that were identified include: visual and performing arts, health and physical education, language arts/literacy, mathematics, science, social studies and world languages. Since then more recent adoptions (2004) have included technological literacy, and career education and consumer family and life skills. In 2009, the state of New Jersey adopted its latest set of standards. Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards were added and the Career/Consumer Life Skills was renamed and revised to be 21st Century Life and Careers. The state of New Jersey also adopted a national set of standards (Common Core) for literacy and mathematics in 2010. Cumulative Progress Indicators (CPIs) describe what students should know and be able to do in a specific academic area by the end of a grade level or grade span. The most recent review and revision of the standards occurred in 2014. Limited changes were made in most areas, but the national standards for science, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), were adopted as the state science standards. However, the standards in language arts and math underwent an additional review in 2015 with adoption by the state board of education in 2016.
The NJSLS define the results expected but do not dictate to districts how to ensure that students achieve these expectations. State assessments such as New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA) are one tool used to measure students' level of performance as outlined in the standards.
All current and draft standards are available on line at the New Jersey Department of Education website at: https://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/