NJ Education Report

Don’t miss David Leonhardt’s New York Times piece, “When Does Holding Teachers Accountable Go Too Far.”

Good Courier-Post political analysis on the fall-out from Race To The Top.

PolitickerNJ reports that Christie was operating on the “3 strikes and you’re out” principle.” Schundler’s 3 whiffs: 1) telling school districts to expect 20% cuts in state aid when it was much more; 2) compromising with NJEA on the second round of RTTT; 3) “screwing up” NJ’s application and, according to Christie, lying about it.

Tom Moran of The Star-Ledger on the Democrats’ likelihood of “overplaying” the Christie Administration’s scramble to reassert authority: “Democrats, after being punched silly by the governor for the last eight months, can barely contain themselves. But they are probably the governor’s best hope of salvation. For one, they are resisting his plans to cut labor costs in schools and local governments, giving the governor a huge opening. That’s his home field, where he has the people of New Jersey squarely on his side. And with pardons to Schundler, that fight is far more important.

Alfred Doblin of The Record: “There is little point to legislative hearings. Schundler admits he made the error. There is no conspiracy. And if Christie decided to deflect blame by accusing Obama, he is guilty of what? Partisan rhetoric? If that’s a crime Congress would need to be relocated to Guantanamo Bay.”

NJ Spotlight proffers bios on the “new power trio” at the NJ DOE, Rochelle Hendricks, Andy Smarick, and Gregg Edwards.

The Wall Street Journal examines the controversy over the LA Times release of teacher evaluations:

Currently, less than 2% of teachers are denied tenure in L.A., and teacher evaluations don’t take into account whether students are learning. Ms. Weingarten prefers to continue a system of meaningless teacher assessments that almost never result in an instructor being fired for performance. So she wants to shoot the messenger for telling readers things they clearly want to know.

Willingboro Public Schools’ dysfunction reaches new depths: the Board of Education gave the President a vote of no confidence; an independent consultant described the Board as inconsistent, micromanaging, and interfering with daily operations; meetings last until 3 a.m.; there have been 6 superintendents in the last 5 years. Student achievement? ” Testing for ninth- and 10th-graders indicated that out of the 230 students, 58.3 were proficient in language arts and only 20.4 percent were proficient in math. On the High School Proficiency Assessment, 53 percent of 217 students were proficient in language arts and 22.1 percent in math.”
(Burlington County Times, here, here and here.)

Dr. Clifford Janey, Superintendent of Newark, turned down a buy-out after he wasn’t renewed. Ras Baraka, Newark Councilman/Newark Central High Principal told PolitickerNJ that the non-renewal was “really a bully move.”

EdExcellence on the Kafka-esque nature of being a school board member.