NJ Education Report

Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson has an editorial in today’s Star-Ledger that provides a response to this week’s “no-confidence vote” from the district’s Advisory School Board.  Tuesday night, in a dramatic move, the Board left Anderson’s chair empty on the stage of George Washington Carver Elementary School (where the board meeting and consequent vote took place) and, according to yesterday’s NJ Spotlight, “the meeting quickly became more of a public protest against Anderson and the state’s control of the district, with plenty of points of contention.”
 
“Ever since her appointment by Gov. Chris Christie,” continues John Mooney,  “Anderson has been unpopular with some segments of the community. But she has faced especially big challenges in her second full year with plans for laying off nearly 200 administrators and other support staff and the need to find other reductions to fill a $56 million funding gap next year.”

According to her editorial this morning, she not backing down. In fact, her column serves as a kind of “no confidence” vote of the Advisory Board and, less obliquely,  a heightened call for some mechanism that enables administrators to retain staff based on job performance, not years served.  Here’s her talking points:

• Newark’s school budget for 2013-2014 will increase to almost $1 billion, despite falling enrollment and declining revenue. This imbalance results in a $57 million deficit.

• “As we try to “right-size” our district to fit our shrinking student population, we are required by law to retain employees based exclusively on how long they have been in the district, as opposed to their effectiveness or abilities.”

• In order to abide by seniority-based lay-offs, as inscribed in NJ law, Anderson must lay off administrators and Central Office employees, one of the strategies that led to the “no confidence vote.” (NJ is one of only 12 states that retain this archaic practice, often referred to as LIFO, or “first in, last out.”)

• Newark schools, she says, overclassify students as eligible for special education services, which leads to higher costs. (The state’s new School Performance Report for West Side High, for example, says that 27% of the students there are disabled, although, overall, Newark’s classification rate is far lower than, say, Camden, which classifies 34% of its high school students.)

• And, in a statement  sure to draw more ire, she affirms flatly, “We must partner with the charter community to share best practices and better serve the neediest kids in order to drive stronger achievement in every ward across the city.”

But her editorial devotes the most column inches to the burdens of  LIFO. She says, “we want our schools to be able to staff their teams according to excellence. We must, within constraints, allow schools to pick high-quality staff that fits their mission and best serves students and families while trying to avoid ‘forced placement.’”

The New Jersey Legislature, of course, despite the pleas of DOE officials and education reform leaders, declined to eliminate LIFO in the state’s new tenure reform bill. An earlier draft of Senator Teresa Ruiz’s bill did away with LIFO but, in a last-minute concession to unions (and legislators who depend on their largesse), the practice was reinserted. As a back-door strategy, Anderson has established a sort of mini “rubber room” for excess staff, who may be assigned to another district school or given administrative duties.  But Newark, like all NJ districts, is still stuck with the payroll and benefits expenses of staff members who don’t “best serve students and families.”

Maybe NJ’s new tenure reform legislation will eventually help weed out under-performers. We’ll know in five or ten years. In the meantime, Anderson’s resolve to continue to address the foibles of LIFO is admirable, if quixotic.