By LISA FLEISHER
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday proposed expanding high-school testing by requiring students to pass multiple subject exams in order to graduate, similar to their counterparts in New York.
As part of a long-term testing approach, current fourth-graders would be the first required to pass the new tests, which acting state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf said would be a better measure of whether students are ready for college and beyond.
Mr. Christie said: "We need to make sure that the students that we send from New Jersey high schools to go into the work force or into higher education are prepared on their first day to sit in that classroom or perform a job that a business has asked them to perform."
Under the existing high-school testing system, students have to pass a single test that covers math and English. The new tests would also cover math and English, and the administration is reviewing recommendations that students pass tests in social studies and science, for a total of 12 tests.
To transition to the new tests, current middle-school students would take the additional tests, but the results wouldn't count toward graduation. Mr. Christie said the state could create the requirements through regulation passed by the administration-controlled state board.
It's unclear how much the plan would cost. If it adopts the social studies and science requirements, the state would have to purchase or develop the new tests. English and math tests would be developed through a consortium that includes nearly half the states in the country, and that is funded by the federal government. But the state would still have to pay for the tests on an ongoing basis.
The state also wants schools to offer a test such as the SAT to prove students are ready for college. If students don't pass, they should be offered remedial courses in high school, according to the proposal.
Mr. Cerf said that while there are many good schools in New Jersey, there are several hundred that New Jerseyans should be "ashamed" of.
Bruce Baker, a Rutgers University professor who studies school finance and testing, said it's important to determine whether the tests are effective before hanging something as consequential as graduation on them. "It's the same old issue of using data that is imprecise for making precise judgments," he said. Broadening tests to science and social studies, he said, could avoid a narrowing of the curriculum that could result from using just math and English.
"This could conceivably be better," he said.
Write to Lisa Fleisher at lisa.fleisher@wsj.com
