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Star Ledger - Gov. Chris Christie talks school reform: A Q&A...Among Issues discussed - Tenure Reform, Merit Pay, Opportunity Scholarship Act, Struggling Schools, Charter Schools expansion and focus, and local vote or not...
Star Ledger Editorial - N.J. Democrats must step up on education reform
Star Ledger - Gov. Chris Christie talks school reform: A Q&A
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 7:09 AM
If you judge by average tests scores, New Jersey has one of the nation’s best public education systems. But if you zero in on the failing urban districts, the need for reform is compelling.
That’s going to create spark in the next few months in Trenton, as the Democratic Legislature considers Gov. Chris Christie’s reform plan.
Christie discussed it last week with Star-Ledger Editorial Page Editor Tom Moran. An edited transcript appears below.
(Note: The Opportunity Scholarship Act, referred to below, would provide vouchers for students in some failing districts to attend private schools, even those with religious affiliations.)
Q. Do you think education reform is the most important fight of the coming year?
A. Probably.
Q. And is tenure reform the most important part of that?
A. I see tenure, merit pay and OSA as a bundle. I’d like to see them all go together. By repairing the tenure system, we’ll be able to get rid of some ineffective teachers, but then we’ve got to get effective ones in there and it’s going to be years and years. So that’s why I think OSA is such an important part, and increasing charter schools in urban areas, so that those kids don’t get lost while the fixes of tenure and merit pay are fixing the system in a 10-year horizon.
Q. How are you going to influence the Legislature as this is discussed over the next few months?
A. By continuing to say things like I (did) to a group of independent college presidents I had breakfast with this week. One of the professors got up and said, “We’re first nationwide in eighth-grade reading and we’re first nationwide in eighth-grade math.” And I say that’s great! But it does not change my focus on the kids in the 200 failing schools who are nowhere near that.
The thing that’s stunned me all along about this is that I don’t understand Democrats who are the ones who are predominantly representing these kids and don’t stand up and fight for them. I don’t understand it. Here I am, a Republican living in a suburban district, with an overwhelming majority of my votes coming from rural and suburban voters, who are generally served very well by their public education system, except for cost. And I’m the one fighting, I’m the one delivering every Republican vote in the Legislature, I’m fighting, tooth and nail, with Democrats who are watching the kids in their districts fail. So, I’m going to be talking very directly, in that way about it. And putting it on them. It’s on them now.
Q. Let me ask you something about Newark, speaking of urban schools. As I’m sure you know, Cami Anderson, the new superintendent, has given principals the power to say “no thanks” when a teacher’s placed in that principal’s school. So, there are now about 80 teachers no principal wants in an “excess teacher pool” that’s costing the district about $8 million a year. What’s your reaction to that?
A. Great job. She’s absolutely doing the right thing. Listen, I hired her with the commissioner of education because I thought she was just the type of tough, courageous person who would not give a darn about anything other than fixing a broken public school system, and I think this is a perfect example of it. I want those teachers out. And if we had tenure reform, I think they could be. But if you give me a choice between having an ineffective teacher in the front of a classroom or paying an ineffective teacher for doing nothing in the short term, I’d rather pay an ineffective teacher for doing nothing.
Q. On the tenure reform bill, the Democrats are talking about making an exception to the LIFO reform — Last In First Out — that would make it hard for her to fire those teachers by grandfathering in tenure for all the existing teachers. How important is that?
A. It’s really important, but I can’t yet tell you it is a deal-breaker for me or not. I’ve got to see what else is around it. What I’ve also learned in this job is that sometimes I don’t get everything I want — things that I have to live with as a short-term interim step that will allow me to make some progress, but not lose my ability rhetorically to continue to try to grab for even more.
Q. Is the teachers union the state’s most powerful lobby?
A. Yes.
Q. Does that explain why Democrats aren’t on board for some of the reforms you’re talking about in the cities?
A. You’d have to ask them.
Q. The charter school movement is facing serious push-back in the suburbs, as you know. Do you agree with those who say charters are not needed in successful districts?
A. I think that charters are much more needed in failing districts, and so the focus of this administration is going to be there and not worry as much about expanding in the successful districts.
I don’t think, for instance, that some of these specialty schools that are coming up, like Mandarin immersion or Hebrew immersion, should be the focus of the movement, and I know our administration has approved one or two of those. In my view, the focus of the movement is to save kids in failing districts by offering another choice within the public system to parents who don’t have the money to give their kids another choice.
Q. What if the bill the Assembly approved requiring a referendum to open a charter school becomes law in New Jersey? How would that affect the movement
A. I have grave concerns about allowing that to become law.
Q. That sounds almost like a veto threat.
A. It is expressing my concern and hoping that they would reconsider.
Q. The latest version of the voucher program, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, shrinks the pilot program even further. What’s your reaction to that?
A. I’m disappointed. But if any small group of kids and families get helped, that’s a positive for the state. So my view is: Let’s just get going on it, let’s get going. Let’s give it a try.
Star Ledger Editorial - N.J. Democrats must step up on education reform
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 6:32 AM The Star-Ledger
Good luck finding common ground among Republicans and Democrats on issues such as taxes, climate change or health care. It is almost as if we are two nations, not one.
But education reform is different. On this issue, you can find odd political bedfellows all over the place. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, is in near-complete agreement with Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The Rev. Reginald Jackson, head of the Black Ministers’ Council, has broad common ground with state Sen. Tom Kean, the Republican leader in the Senate.
They all want tenure reform. They all want to open and expand good charter schools and to close down the bad ones. They all want to experiment with a pilot program to provide vouchers for private school tuitions.
Given that, you might think that education reform is greased for passage. But you’d be wrong. This remains a tough slog and the endgame is by no means assured. The irony is that Republicans are in lock-step support of reform while Democrats are not — even though the failing schools are mostly in Democratic territory. (See Christie’s comments on opposite page.)
Tenure reform, the most important part of this package, is facing stubborn opposition. Democrats won’t kill it outright, but they may weaken it enough to justify a veto by Christie.
Research shows that children suffer lasting damage when they have a bad teacher for even one or two years. In urban districts, where more kids are struggling to begin with, the damage is magnified.
No one disputes that the tenure system, however noble its intent, has morphed into a mind-boggling maze of protections for even the most outrageously bad teachers. It can takes years to remove a bad teacher, at a cost that can easily reach $200,000.
Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) is drafting more sensible rules. Under her bill, a teacher could lose tenure after two years of bad evaluations, under a streamlined process.
The big fight now is over seniority protections during layoffs. To the teachers’ union and many Democrats, seniority protection for union workers is a core value. The existing rules enshrine that, by requiring the least experienced teachers go first, even when they are top performers.
That rule is certain to change. The problem is that teachers who have tenure today might be exempted. In effect, that would phase in the change over many years, condemning more children to lasting damage.
Here’s our suggestion: The Legislature should apply the Cami Anderson test to any reform.
Anderson is the superintendent in Newark who has established an “excess teacher pool” for educators whom no principal wants. It has about 80 unneeded teachers in it, at a cost of $8 million a year.
That sounds crazy, but it’s not. Because under existing tenure rules, Anderson can reduce her staff only if she’s willing to lay off her best young teachers first. She won’t do it, and she’s right not to. Under the watered-down rules Democrats are considering, that would not change.
So here’s the test: If tenure reform doesn’t allow Anderson to get rid of the teachers no one wants, then it’s not real reform.
Democrats need to remember there’s another core value at stake here: doing right
by our children.
