Categories: News

Quote of the Day

Andy Smarick, late of the NJ Department of Education and currently a partner at Bellwether Education Partners and senior policy fellow with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, considers the release last week of NJ’s School Performance Reports.

While the reports reinforce just how tragically low-performing the state’s urban districts are, they also show that the preening of many leafy suburban communities is unwarranted. Said state commissioner Chris Cerf, this data “will make clear that there are a number of schools out there that perhaps are a little bit too satisfied with how they are doing when compared with how other schools serving similar populations are doing.”

This leads to the “harsher gauntlet” on the horizon, the 2015 implementation of the first round of the Common Core assessments, when schoolchildren will be tested far more rigorously.  What will the response of the education reform community when “lots of parents are going to be looking for solutions?”

Unless there’s a clear playbook for how we should respond, the vacuum will be filled by excuses (The tests are wrong! Everything is fine!) and old, ineffective, but popular and establishment-friendly interventions (More spending! Reduce class sizes!). 

If I were a state chief, I’d have a team, off to the side, working on this right now. We would be drafting new policies, working on communications plans, and much, much more. 

The reform community has a well-known tool-kit for our most distressed schools. But a counterpart for our suburban schools is conspicuously missing.

Laura Waters

View Comments

  • What really counts:how are these students doing in REAL LIFE?

    Hey Andy, don't let the revolving door smack you in the tuchas on your way through.

Recent Posts

BREAKING: Statement from JerseyCAN on State’s Long-Delayed Release of Student Test Results

This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…

2 years ago

NJEA: Murphy’s Elimination of Teacher Performance Test Is a Major Win for Students and Educators

This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…

2 years ago

Murphy Signs Bill Eliminating EdTPA Test for Teacher Certification

Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…

2 years ago

LILLEY: Blue States Had More School Closures and More Learning Loss — Just Like NJ under Gov. Murphy

The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…

2 years ago

One of Newark Superintendent’s New High Schools Tolerates Racism Against Black Students

In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…

2 years ago