NJ Education Report

The Star Ledger is conducting a poll to determine if New Jerseyans believe that, per a new rule proposed by Chris Cerf, aspiring teachers should have to maintain a 3.0 GPA in college.

NJ Spotlight’s take on the mood amongst NJ’s school superintendent at Comm. Chris Cerf’s annual convocation this week: “while a few school superintendents did ultimately wander forward [to ask questions], the hesitation spoke to a different tenor – some would call it calm, others resignation — that is coming over this group in the fourth year of Gov. Chris Christie’s tenure and the third year for his education commissioner.”

The Record’s Leslie Brody has a great update on NJ DOE’s plans to give 10% of the state’s students in grades 3-8 an “ extra set of standardized tests this spring to try out the new, more rigorous assessments that will debut officially next year.”

In accordance with our Race to the Top waiver, NJ will distribute $1 million among the lowest-performing schools. (Spotlight)

Hunterdon Daily Democrat: “At a town hall-style meeting held last night in the Municipal Building, school officials made their case that South Hunterdon High School and Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell Township schools should be merged into a single K-12 district.” The total enrollment in the newly-formed district would total 925 students. Go Hunterdon!

NJ Spotlight interviews Paymon Rouhanifard, new superintendent of Camden Public Schools.

Trevor Butterworth reviews Diane Ravitch’s new book:

“Reign of Error” ostensibly takes up the question that her previous book—2010’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”—failed to address: What should we be doing about American education and what should we avoid doing? Yet much time is expended on restating the same themes, without the humility that accompanied having to originally explain why she had soured on a movement she had done so much to push forward. Ms. Ravitch is no longer writing to explain herself. She is writing for victory, which means crushing a phalanx of enemies, real and imagined.

Also check out this balanced Politico piece.

In case you missed it, here’s my WHYY Newsworks column on the new “movement” to boycott state standardized tests.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has issued a report on states’ progress towards Race to the Top goals, including implementation of data-driven teacher evaluations. According to EdWeek’s Politics K12, states are having “differing degrees of success” but “overall, most Race to the Top states are happy with the level of support they’re getting from the U.S. Department of Education.”