NJ Education Report

It’s mid-November, so it must be time for the NJEA Teacher Convention! A week after school board members partied in Atlantic City, 35,000 members of New Jersey’s teaching corps headed down to the boardwalk; according to the Star-Ledger’s John Mooney, there was much chatter about the impact of President-Elect Obama’s victory.

Primary Gripe: Obama’s support for merit pay and charter schools. Joyce Powell, President of NJEA, said delicately, “We may have our differences of opinion on some things.” And, less delicately,

“If they are going to broach that, why not let us also negotiate class sizes or textbook selection?” she said. “They have to understand that when we put an idea like that on the table, other things come with it.”

We love teachers. But this knee-jerk response to innovation gets to the heart of the oxymoronic stance of NJEA. On the one hand, its members function under the old industrial model of paying people based on seniority. On the other hand, they insist that they are professionals, who hypothetically earn more money for increased proficiency. In fact, more and more communities are experimenting with merit pay – think Michelle Rhee in D.C. (see this piece from the Washington Post) – and there is growing evidence that charter schools, under the right conditions, help kids learn.

C’mon, teachers. It’s time for change we can believe in.