NJ Education Report

The Record looks at superintendent salaries in Jersey.

Carla Katz says the 2.5% cap is “an illegal attack on the constitutional rights of public employees disguised as reform.”

Carl Golden at New Jersey Newsroom says Christie facing special interests is like Stalin facing Hitler. (Does he mean that in a good way?)

Eight retired NJ Supreme Court justices ask Gov. Christie to reappoint Justice Wallace.

Charles Stile at The Record is bewildered: “I’m at a loss as to explain why Christie is so confident — he will still need to negotiate with the ruling Democrats. He has the bully pulpit, but not the votes.”

Here’s Dr. Lauren Hill’s testimony, representing the Education Law Center, against the voucher bill.

Stephen Sawchuk at Education Week looks at reasons why, over the last 8 years, “the teacher force has increased at more than double the rate of K-12 student enrollments.”

Diane Ravitch prognosticates, “I believe that 10 years from now RTTT will be widely recognized as a colossal waste of federal money that eroded state control of education and compelled cash-hungry states to embark on programs that did not improve education. We may never be able to undo the damage to children, schools, teachers, public education, and federalism now being done in the name of “reform.”

The Wall St. Journal says that “charter schools lack the operational autonomy they need to be effective” and that “Teachers unions and school boards lobby politicians to impose these rules in the hope of hobbling school reformers.”

The Record looks at the repercussions of the high failure rate on the new Alternative High School Assessment. Leonia superintendent Bernard Josefsberg remarks, “In some respects there’s political advantage to be derived from large numbers of failures. It becomes a way of highlighting the failure of schools whose performance you’re calling into question.”

The Asbury Park Press Editorial Board supports a new bill “that would allow local and regional school districts to designate county school superintendents to act as the employer representative in negotiations with school district employee unions.”