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Published: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 6:00 AM, By Star-Ledger Staff
TRENTON — The state’s top education official today will unveil sweeping legislation that would change the way teachers in New Jersey are evaluated, compensated, and given tenure, said a person familiar with the proposal.
Although details of the proposed legislation were not immediately available, the source indicated it would follow some of the changes Gov. Chris Christie has called for: the linking of teacher evaluations to student performance, eliminating teacher tenure and replacing it with five-year contracts, and offering bonuses to the state’s most talented teachers.
The source said the proposal to be disclosed today would constitute one of the most ambitious efforts by any state to improve the quality of teaching. The source requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak about it publicly.
Department of Education officials would not provide specifics of the speech.
Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf is scheduled to deliver a speech at Princeton University this afternoon, which is billed as a "major announcement" on teacher effectiveness and tenure reform. Education leaders and advocates are expected to attend, some of whom will take part in a panel discussion afterward.
It’s unknown how the proposed legislation would conflict with existing labor laws or how any potential disputes with the state’s teachers union over compensation and seniority would be resolved.
Chris Christie announces approval of 23 new charter schools in N.J.
During a visit to the Robert Treat Academy Charter School in Newark, Gov. Chris Christie announce the state’s approval of 23 new charter schools — an increase by nearly a third of all the charter schools in the state. Christie praised high performing charter schools in urban and disadvantaged areas as providing a model for fixing chronically failing school districts and urged the creation of new kinds of charter schools. He also suggested the charter school movement had been stymied in the past by politicians beholden to special interests, including the state’s largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, or NJEA. (Video by Nyier Abdou/The Star-Ledger)
The New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has reiterated its opposition to these proposals in equal measure. Christie has been locked in a battle with the union since his days on the campaign trail, and often criticizes union leadership for being "greedy" and not "putting students first."
Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the NJEA, said the forthcoming proposals would "ruin teaching and education in New Jersey," and called the governor’s teacher evaluations task force – which will deliver a report on the topic in March — a "total sham." The state’s largest teachers union was notably left off the nine-member task force.
"This governor has already decided what he wants to do," Wollmer said. "He wants to evaluate teachers in a way that is absolutely contrary to the research and which will have a destructive impact on public education by putting even more emphasis on standardized test taking and preparation."
The proposed legislation would be a significant step for education reform, said spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards’ Association Frank Belluscio.
"There are big changes on the table," said Belluscio, who has not seen the legislative proposal , but said he and others from the association will be attending Cerf’s speech "I think we’re looking at the concept of renewable tenure, where retaining teachers will be based on performance. That’s a concept we strongly support."
"You have a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. supporting these types of concepts. We have a Republican governor in New Jersey advocating them. In December, there was a hearing before a Democrat-controlled Senate committee on tenure reform," Belluscio said. "An event like that would not have happened three years ago."
Senate Education Committee chairwoman Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) has been preparing to draft a tenure reform bill since that December hearing. It was there the committee heard from the key advocate of a landmark Colorado law signed this spring that requires all teachers to undergo annual evaluations based 50 percent on students’ demonstrated performance in the classroom.
Along with tenure reform, the proposed legislation will also focus on merit pay, something the governor often describes as reward for the state’s best teachers, according to the source. But Rutgers University Graduate School of Education professor Bruce Baker said merit pay would make teaching a less desirable profession for new-comers.
"Teachers will realize very quickly that they have little control over these raises and how prone to error the calculations are," Baker said. "The merit of these types of raises isn’t merit at all — it’s a crap shoot."
By Jessica Calefati and Jeanette Rundquist/The Star-Ledger
© 2011 NJ.com. All rights reserved.
Statehouse Bureau ‘Speaker: Revise voucher proposal’
….Concerned about constitutionality, says it won't help poor students
Feb 16, 2011 By MICHAEL SYMONS, STATEHOUSE BUREAU
Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver said Tuesday that supporters of a plan to give students in low-performing city schools tuition money they can use to enroll in private or parochial schools ought to scale back their proposal.
Oliver, D-Essex, who as speaker has the power to decide whether bills are posted for an Assembly vote, told the editorial boards of New Jersey Press Media that she has concerns about the constitutionality and details of the plan, which is backed by Gov. Chris Christie and has been endorsed by three legislative committees.
"I have mixed feelings about the Opportunity Scholarship Act," Oliver said. "But I am extremely open conceptually to (a) demonstration or pilot (program)."
A bill would let companies make tax-deductible donations to scholarship organizations, which would award funds to students from low-income families in 166 chronically failing schools in 13 districts, including Perth Amboy, Asbury Park, Camden, Lakewood and Perth Amboy.
Oliver cited the following issues:
First Amendment concerns about the separation of church and state.
Twenty-five percent of the money could be utilized by children already enrolled in private and parochial schools.
Administrative operations for three regional entities that would dispense scholarships could cost up to $50 million.
A lack of guidance about how the program would be evaluated.
Public school districts would have to fund the transportation for former students who switch through the program to an out-of-town school.
Suburban public schools eligible to receive students under the program will not willingly volunteer.
"I do see that as being an issue, particularly when suburban school districts have been effectuated by cuts to their funding," she said.
Oliver, a former East Orange school board president, said she is intrigued by the idea of steering children with educational challenges who are not progressing in their current public schools into "smaller learning communities."
She said crowded schools of students "all pretty much bringing similar baggage to the classrooms with them" make for a difficult environment for students, teachers and administrators.
"These factors cannot be overlooked when we have discussion about the failure of urban education," Oliver said. "There are teachers that I know that take children into bathrooms and bathe them in the morning. There are teachers in urban districts that keep cabinets of cereal to feed children during the course of a day. We cannot negate those factors when we talk about disadvantaged children."
But the proposal does not necessarily help the children who are failing, she said. "We're not given any assurance under this proposal that the children who need a better learning environment are in fact the children who will get it."
Derrell Bradford, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, said every change in the legislation, particularly in the number of eligible districts, leaves thousands more children stranded in inadequate schools.
"We as a coalition have worked very hard to develop something that meets critical concerns, particularly among the Democratic wing of the education reform movement — about school quality, oversight, assessment, making sure that nonpublic schools are very committed to giving kids a good chance," Bradford said. "This bill is the most government-friendly, most-regulated version of a bill like this that's ever existed while still preserving the key piece of it — that there are kids in terrible schools and we want to give them another option."
"It's better to save some than none, but there is a human toll to negotiating this bill and there's a human toll to making it smaller," Bradford said.
On other issues in the wide-ranging editorial board meeting, Oliver said she:
Still thinks civil-service reform will be enacted, despite Christie's conditional veto of the Democrats' plan for not letting towns opt out of the system. "We're going to continue the dialogue with the governor. We will reach some agreement."
Has not gotten any indication from Christie about whether he will sign the Democrats' package of jobs-related bills. Deadline is next Tuesday. "I take that as a bad sign."
Expects the state budget proposal Christie will unveil next week in a speech to the Legislature to include "even more significant cuts to education."
Opposes a plan by Republican lawmakers to cut urban preschool spending by $300 million and redirect the funds to suburban districts. "New Jersey has been consistently for the last couple of years showing on a national level the most advances in the fourth-grade testing of students, and it's directly attributable to our investment in pre-K."
Believes the Christie administration will win in the school-funding case now before the state Supreme Court. "I think by some of the questions the jurists have been posing, I think they are going to take into consideration the economic environment of New Jersey."
Thinks the affordable-housing issue will be decided by the courts, not through legislation. "We cannot reach a consensus here. The governor would like a law that would not hold any community for the creation of low- or moderate-income housing. So we're at detente."
Noticed that at public hearings on redistricting, the growth of the state's Hispanic population is the dominant theme. "I think at the end, the 11th member makes the determination of which map is adopted. And then we get sued."
Star Ledger ‘Gov. Christie signs off on 10 school construction projects, leaving remaining schools in limbo’
Published: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 6:00 AM
By Ginger Gibson/Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — Touting a new selection process he says is devoid of politics and driven by need and the bottom line, Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday signed off on 10 school construction projects in the state’s poorest districts.
The number of schools approved for construction is far smaller than the 51-school list Christie scrapped last year. Officials in districts no longer slated for work decried the snub as ignoring needed projects the state had already spent money planning to build or refurbish.
Christie announced the $584 million in construction through the Schools Development Authority as a step to curb expenses and stop the waste of tax dollars. He said the process that placed 51 schools on the previous list was riddled with political favors and waste.
"We’re going to move carefully and deliberately in the expenditure of the people’s money in this state," Christie said. "The phrase ‘regardless of the cost’ is stricken from the vocabulary of this government."
Christie said each project was reviewed for need and efficiency. A list ranking all of the proposed projects and how they measured up will be released when SDA Director Mark Larkin goes to the board in March for final approval.
Under a more than decade-old court order, the state is compelled to build schools in the poorest districts. Christie’s list of schools includes Bridgeton, Elizabeth, Long Branch, Jersey City, New Brunswick, Newark, Paterson and West New York. The plan calls for building one high school and nine elementary schools.
Christie expects construction to begin this year at two sites: a magnet high school in Elizabeth and a Long Branch elementary school. The remaining projects will be in the development this year, he said.
By working to standardize projects, or develop a common design, Christie said more savings could be realized on the other eight projects before construction begins.
Many projects that were approved under former Gov. Jon Corzine did not make Christie’s list. The SDA will review schools each year, Christie said, and decide which new schools should be added. There are no quotas, and next year could bring five or 20 new schools, Christie said.
Local education officials with schools left off the list objected Tuesday.
The state has already spent $20 million for a new Phillisburg High School, but the overcrowded Warren County school didn’t make the list. Superintendent Mark Miller said Phillipsburg’s absence from the list is "appalling."
Half the students take classes in 31 trailers scattered behind the current school’s structure, some of which are 15 years old. There are so many trailers, Miller said, they block passage on a nearby city street.
"There is no question in my mind or the mind of anyone else who knows Phillipsburg that these students deserve a new schools," Miller said. "I have no idea why we are not on this list."
Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) expressed shock that the Cleveland Street School in Orange, a 100-year-old building, was left off the list.
"If this school does not qualify for funding under the governor’s new ‘prioritization system’ then I cannot wait to see what standards this system is based upon," Jasey said in a statement. "I hope that the governor lives up to his promise to provide complete ‘transparency’ when it comes to his prioritization system so that we can determine if this is truly a merit-based system."
Officials whose schools made the list were elated.
New Brunswick School Superintendent Richard Kaplan said his district’s A. Chester Redshaw Elementary School is "the only school in the state they (state officials) tore down and didn’t rebuild. We should be priority one."
Since 2006, the Redshaw School’s children have attended class in a warehouse. It has no playground, is across town and requires kids be bused there. It was only intended to be open two to three years, he said.
The new school, which will house 675 children in grades 1-5, will be built on an empty lot on Livingston Avenue where the former school once stood.
Jessica Calefati and Jeanette Rundquist contributed to this report.
