NJ Education Report

My post today at WHYY’s Newsworks examines Sen. Barbara Buono’s just-released education plan for New Jersey:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono released her education plan for New Jersey’s public schools earlier this week and, to no one’s surprise, her vision for public education has little in common with incumbent Chris Christie’s reform-tinged agenda. While both support the Common Core State Standards, an initiative piloted by the nation’s governors to upgrade the rigor of course content, the candidates clash on just about every other item.

The two primary points of dissension between Buono and Christie involve money and accountability.  How should school aid be allocated among economically diverse districts? How many services should a state system provide? And what’s the role of the State Supreme Court in adjudicating fiscal equity?

Secondly, how should N.J. should measure teacher effectiveness, a fundamental requirement of our new tenure reform law? To what extent — if any — should we use student test scores instead of traditional classroom observations?

Read the rest here.

A happy and healthy new year to all my readers!