Here’s two hopeful signs of education reform in NJ: according to NJ Spotlight, Senator Teresa Ruiz’s tenure reform bill is moving forward; she hopes to have it approved in the Legislature during the lame duck session after the November elections. Also, NJEA’s leadership, according to the Asbury Park Press, has instructed its local units to cooperate with the state’s pilot of value-added models, which tie student growth to teacher evaluations.
Ruiz’s bill (see here) offers the following changes to our current tenure law, which mandates tenure protection to teachers after they’ve employed by a public school district after three years and a day:
In other teacher evaluation news, NJEA Spokesman Steve Baker commented positively on the DOE’s 10-district pilot of tying student test scores to teacher evaluations. “We want it to be successful,” he said. And Deputy Ed Commissioner Andy Smarick said during a presentation to the Senate Education Committee, “Our purpose was to do this with teachers, not to them. We wanted this to be a great partnership.”
The ten districts participating in the pilot are Alexandria, Bergenfield, Elizabeth, Monroe, Ocean City, Cape May, Pemberton, Red Bank, Secaucus, West Deptford, and Woodstown-Pilesgrove. Newark is also involved, although its VAM pilot is funded through a different grant.
This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…
This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…
Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…
The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…
In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…
This is a press release from the Governor's Office. In related news, one in five…
View Comments
The Ruiz bill moves teacher evaluations in exactly the WRONG direction---i.e., away from supers and boards and into the hands of those most likely to subscribe to the "go-along-to-get-along" culture prevalent in many districts.
Is the senator forgetting that principals are currently tasked with teacher observations? How is it that all these subpar teachers remain on the rolls???
[On teacher evaluation through VAM,] Andy Smarick said during a presentation to the Senate Education Committee, “Our purpose was to do this with teachers, not to them. We wanted this to be a great partnership.”
At best, wishful thinking. If teachers collectively object, the plan is to do it to them. Objections based on research that shows VAM is deeply flawed will be ignored in the fervor to achieve simplistic accountability, a politically popular notion in this sinking economy where resentment towards public employees with secure employment is running high.
There is no accountability for the forces that have promoted the lie that New Jersey public education is generally failing, or for promoting the lie that the problems we do have can be solved by attacking teachers.