TRENTON, NJ – Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex), a former English teacher and school administrator, is criticizing the New Jersey Department of Education for what she calls a years-long erosion of writing standards in public schools.
In a social media post Monday, Fantasia argued that changes in state testing—from the NJASK to PARCC and now the NJSLA—have led educators to deprioritize grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure in favor of broader content-based writing assessments.
“For years, NJ schools graded writing with the expectation that students write clearly and correctly,” Fantasia wrote. “Then the NJDOE changed course. We went from the NJASK, to the PARCC exams, to the current NJSLA. As testing evolved, writing became more about getting the idea down than how it was written.”
Fantasia said that as state rubrics began rewarding content over correctness, students received the message that mechanical accuracy no longer mattered.
“If your point is there, we won’t worry too much about the errors,” she wrote. “Grammar, usage, and mechanics stopped being core skills and became optional.”
She linked the shift to a philosophy promoted as “equitable,” in which teachers were encouraged to grade more leniently and reduce direct grammar instruction. The result, she argued, has been a generation of students struggling with college and workplace writing demands.
“When the rules stop mattering to the adults, student practice stops,” Fantasia wrote. “Grades rise, but real writing skills fall.”
Fantasia, who previously served as a high school English teacher, said she never adopted the relaxed grading approach in her own classroom.
“Clear writing is not about being nitpicky; it is about being understood,” she added. “Lowering expectations did not help students.”
Her comments come amid growing national concern over literacy and writing proficiency following pandemic-era learning disruptions.
Recent state assessments have shown stagnation or decline in English language arts performance across several grade levels.
Fantasia has positioned education standards as a key issue in her legislative agenda, calling for stronger grammar instruction and accountability in classroom writing assessments.