NJ Education Report

According to NJ School Boards Association, only 73 school districts will hold elections in April; the other 500 or so have opted to move to November.

Jason Method of the Courier-Post observes a teacher observation in Red Bank, one of the 11 districts participating in the State DOE teacher evaluation pilot program.

Check out NJ Spotlight’s interactive map on the allocation of school state aid.

Gov. Christie, reports the Star-Ledger, is not frustrated with the pace of education reform.

The Record reports on the $1 million grant to school districts to compensate them for costs associated with implementation of the anti-bullying law.

Former Senator Raymond Bateman on NJ’s teacher tenure laws:

Good teachers — and most teachers are good teachers — don’t need, in New Jersey (or anyplace else), lifetime job protection after three years of teaching. That protection may have been needed 50-60 years ago but not in today’s world. And, that’s not the worst of the problem. To remove under-performing teachers is a costly, long drawn-out difficult procedure for Jersey school boards and school administrations. Under existing law, it’s literally easier and much less expensive to let bad teachers teach than to try to get rid of them.

Why do we need tenure reform anyway? See here.

Assemblywoman Nellie Pou is sponsoring legislation to raise NJ’s drop-out age to 18.

Assembly Democrats Mila Jasey, Albert Coutinho, Dan Benson, and Ralph Caputo are sponsoring legislation that would “permit already certificated New Jersey teachers to participate in an expedited program to become credentialed to teach science and mathematics subjects on the secondary level, or any subject area in which there is a shortage of teachers in the state as determined by the United States Department of Education.” The press release compares the proposed bill to another Jasey bill, “Traders to Teachers,” which fast-tracked “unemployed Wall Street traders and pharmaceutical employees to fill critical teacher shortages in the areas of science and math.” This new bill, though, would only apply to currently certificated teachers.

NJ Spotlight reports on the DOE’s controversial closing of Emily Fisher Charter School in Trenton.

Lakewood Watch: An editorial in the Asbury Park Press notes that it’s “painful to watch as the problems in Lakewood’s dysfunctional public schools, which had the worst graduation rate in the state in 2010 — 37.6 percent — go unaddressed year after year.” The superintendent, Lydia Silva, just quit in disgust, and any potential amelioration is nullified by the district school board: “none of the school board’s nine members has children who attend the public schools, and many of them seem to be motivated more by reducing spending than by improving the performance in the schools.” Even on discussions over whether to move school elections to November, “the school board reversed itself twice on resolutions” and it was only “the board attorney’s coaching of a swing vote on the board [that] led to the final result.”

Mike Petrelli considers the future of school integration.

And Mitt Romney has just posted his education platform on his website.