NJ Education Report

Tom Moran reviews Barbara Buono’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

“State Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) and Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), both Assembly sponsors of the new tenure law that brought the new rules, are asking the state to extend the current pilot program and postpone full implementation.” (NJ Spotlight)

The Senate Education Committee approved a new bill, S-2086, sponsored by Jim Whelan, which would change the deadline for school board candidates to file petitions to the last Monday in July. The deadline for filing for a term that begins in January 2013 was this past Tuesday. (PolitickerNJ) Also, see the South Jersey Times re: a dearth of school board candidates, attributed in part to the four-month gap between the filing deadline and the election.

The superintendent of East Hanover Township School District is moving to the (smaller) New York State district of Elmsford, in part to avoid the salary cap that would lower his salary to $145K from $168K. In Elmsford he says he’ll make $220K per year, plus merit raises. (Star-Ledger)

From The Record: “Almost 2,200 students in Paterson public schools are in danger of being sent to summer school this year as the district continues its efforts to end the long-time practice of social promotion, officials said. That would represent more than a 20-percent increase over the 1,766 students sent to summer school last year.”

From the Star-Ledger: “After 18 years of state oversight, Newark’s advisory school board will soon regain control of its fiscal operations and could begin voting on district contracts as early as this summer, an assistant state attorney general said yesterday.”

NJ Spotlight reports that the NJ DOE wants to raise the minimum GPA of new teachers from a 2.75 to a 3.00.

It’s not looking good for Gov. Christie’s proposal for a one-year, $2 million voucher pilot program.

NJ Ed Comm. Chris Cerf has denied the applications of two virtual charter schools, New Jersey Virtual Academy Charter School and New Jersey Virtual Charter School. Record coverage here.

The Lakewood School Board, which fired its long-time board attorney Michael Inzelbuch last year, has fired its new lawyers. because the new firm’s fees are too high — $900K just this year. In part, those fees are due, reports the Asbury Park Press, to excessive Open Public Records Act requests from Inzelbuch. Also, the Lakewood Board is suing Inzelbuch, claiming that it’s a conflict of interest for him to resume suing the district on behalf of special education students after representing the district for many years.

The featured article in today’s New York Times Sunday Review section is on the Common Core and worries that “the new standards may well deepen the nation’s social divide.” There will no doubt be much commentary on the piece, especially since there are some factual errors, but it nicely sums up the mostly fear-based opposition.