NJ Education Report

NJEA has formed a super-PAC called Garden State Forward. The PAC will raise money for gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono and other politicians of like minds. The union also just elected new officers.

Politi-Fact’s verdict on the veracity of  Gov. Christie new campaign ad is mixed;  Christie is correct to say that education spending is higher than ever, say the judges, but it’s only half-true that he’s managed to implement merit pay.

The Courier-Post: “Mayor Dana Redd has filled the last two remaining seats on the Camden Board of Education.Jose Brito Bueno will serve a three-year expired term held by Raymond Lamboy and Taisha Minier will serve a one-year unexpired term held by former board member Kathryn Ribay.”

NJ Spotlight reports that Commissioner Cerf has, for the first time, reversed a district’s decision that student misbehavior violated NJ’s anti-bullying act: “In a decision handed down in late April and posted last week, Cerf found that the Pittsgrove school district’s charge against an eighth-grade student identified as C.H. ran counter to the new law. The student had been accused of bullying after a February 2012 incident in which he shoved a piece of crumpled paper down a classmate’s shirt.”

Mike Lilley, Chief of Better Education for Kids,comments on Jersey City’s next mayor, Steve Fulop, who ran against the old Democratic machine (which includes the JC Teachers Union) and won:

“The voters have said yes to the positive change that Mayor-elect Steve Fulop will bring; yes to better schools; and yes to a brighter future for Jersey City,” the group’s executive director, Mike Lilley, said in a statement. “As mayor, we are confident Fulop will continue to work to improve the Jersey City public school system and make sure that every schoolchild has access to a great school and a great education.”

Here’s some of the dirt from the Star-Ledger.

Laura C. Morana,  superintendent of Red Bank Borough schools, reflects on her district’s experience during the pilot of AchieveNJ, NJ’s new data-informed teacher evaluation system:

It is easy to say, “there is so much to do, there is so much to be learned,” and to simply throw our hands in the air. Recently I put myself in our teachers’ shoes in order to understand their perspective. I dug in with some of our best teachers and challenged myself to learn about how they would set the growth objectives for their students. While this forced me out of my comfort zone, I found the process to be meaningful, rewarding, and invigorating.

A new report out from Rutgers considers the effort involved in training administrators to implement the new evaluation rubrics. “The report’s lead author, William Firestone, said in an interview yesterday that the report details the extensive amount of time needed to get all parties up to speed, both on the new procedures and on the broader concept of pinpointing the qualities of good teaching.”

A physically-handicapped student from Perth Amboy says she’s being deprived of opportunities to take honors classes at the district’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Academy because there are no elevators available.

Andy Rotherham at Eduwonk lists seven barriers to the Common Core actually providing equally rigorous course content across all the geographic regions of the U.S..