| ||||||||||||
Star Ledger editorials, column 1) ‘Showtime on taxes: Will Democrats side with unions or taxpayers?’ and, 2) ‘New deal for teachers: Support is bipartisan for merit pay, ending tenure’, and ’ Tom Moran: Public support is integral to Newark schools reform
Star Ledger editorials, column 1) ‘Showtime on taxes: Will Democrats side with unions or taxpayers?’ and, 2) ‘New deal for teachers: Support is bipartisan for merit pay, ending tenure’, and ’ Tom Moran: Public support is integral to Newark schools reform
Star Ledger editorial ‘New deal for teachers: Support is bipartisan for merit pay, ending tenure’
Published: Thursday, September 30, 2010, 5:51 AM
Educational reform is one of the few issues in the galaxy that can bring the political agendas of President Obama, Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker into near-perfect alignment.
There’s a common vision and growing bipartisan support behind the reforms outlined by the Republican governor this week — like paying teachers based on merit, and weeding out the ones who are incompetent.
Christie wants to blow up the existing salary guides, those monuments to an antiquated system in which competence in the classroom means nothing. Instead of basing pay on seniority or accumulated degrees, Christie wants to focus on merit.
He also wants to get rid of the bad teachers by removing tenure protections. The idea that a terrible teacher should go on teaching forever is just nuts.
The hard part will be making sure we get this right. New Jersey doesn’t yet have accurate data that shows which teachers are performing well. For years, the state has been working on a database that would track student achievement and link it to specific teachers. The fact that New Jersey does not have that system in place today, after years of promises, is a disgrace. It was that lack of capacity, not a clerical error, that was the single biggest reason New Jersey lost out on a $400 million federal education grant from Race to the Top.
This can work. In Washington, D.C., Superintendent Michelle Rhee closed scores of bad schools and fired hundreds of ineffective teachers and principals. She based those decisions on good data, combined with rigorous classroom observations. And students improved their performance measurably.
Booker considers Rhee a “hero.” And President Obama, too, recently stressed the need for “radical change” in schools. “Ultimately, if some teachers aren’t doing a good job, they’ve got to go,” Obama said.
Christie has appointed a task force to work out the details on teacher evaluations. If he wants it to have credibility, he should include a variety of expert voices, including teachers. Many of them reject the backward position of their union, the New Jersey Education Association, which opposes all these changes.
Two of the biggest reforms sought by Christie, merit pay and changes to tenure, will require legislation. Look for a big fight in a state Legislature controlled by the Democrats, who are split on these issues.
But give the governor credit for this launch. He has put the discussion where it belongs — on student performance. That is a healthy starting point for reform.
Star Ledger ‘Showtime on taxes: Will Democrats side with unions or taxpayers?’
Published: Sunday, October 03, 2010, 5:51 AM
When a 2 percent cap on property tax increases became law, New Jersey homeowners, already paying the highest property taxes in the nation, cheered.
But there are no balloons falling from town hall ceilings yet. Because passing the cap was the easy part. Everyone loves lower taxes.
The real challenge is passing tough new laws to help mayors and school districts control costs, especially labor costs. Without that, the tax cap will force massive layoffs of teachers, cops and firefighters. Unless, of course, local voters are willing to override the cap and watch their taxes climb.
That’s why 40 nervous mayors stormed the Statehouse Thursday, demanding foot-dragging legislators help them cut costs by changing the rules that are rigged in favor of the public employee unions, especially those governing collective bargaining and civil service.
The real question is whether Democrats will side with taxpayers, or with the unions that make up a pillar of their political coalition. So far, the signs are not encouraging. The key measures are those that would cap labor costs in both schools and towns. And sadly, Democratic leaders in both houses are rejecting the idea, so far.
This week, Assemblyman Joseph Cryan went one better than his stalling colleagues. The Union County undersheriff proposed an exemption to the cap for public safety salaries — a huge portion of any budget. That basically guts the whole idea.
Under Christie’s proposals, the cost of salaries and benefits for public workers would be capped at 2.5 percent annually. The Legislature and the governor can haggle over the details and decimal points, but some cap is crucial, given that the state’s rules on collective bargaining are tilted in favor of the unions and against the taxpayers.
Even in the face of the fiscal crisis we face today, Belmar police recently were awarded 15 percent raises over five years. This system is broken.
Civil service reform — allowing towns to opt out and softening rigid job protections — is needed, too.
So far, Democrats have passed only a handful of modest measures. They must be hoping that will provide some political cover. But it’s not enough. The labor costs are the key, and if Democrats dance around that fact, the governor promises to pound them in next year’s Legislative elections.
If that happens, Democrats will deserve the spanking they get at the polls.
Tom Moran: Public support is integral to Newark schools reform
Published: Sunday, September 26, 2010, 4:50 PM
NEWARK — Shavar Jeffries is one of those miracles you can point to when people ask if the American Dream is still alive.
He grew up poor in Newark, raised by a single mother until she was murdered when he was 10 years old. His grandmother took over, and he later won scholarships to Duke and Columbia Law School.
In April this year, he shocked the city’s political establishment with an overwhelming win that made him president of the city’s school advisory board, in an election that doubled previous turnout.
This guy, in other words, is worth listening to when it comes to the $100 million challenge grant that Newark schools just received.
“It’s tremendous, and the mayor and the governor should be applauded,” he says. “But I don’t think money is our primary problem.”
Newark spends nearly $1 billion a year, roughly $24,000 per kid if you play games to keep the number low.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
The real challenge, Jeffries says, is to change the rules of the game. Bad teachers must go. Good teachers must be rewarded with raises. The best schools should be expanded, and the worst shut down. In all things, the focus must be on student performance.
To make those changes — and to make them stick — you need to convince people in Newark that it’s time.
“If the community does not support it, it can’t be sustained,” he says. “It’s really that simple. It can’t just be a handful of elected leaders supported by national investors.”
The resistance to reform in a city where half the kids wind up dropping out of school might seem puzzling. But during his campaign, Jeffries spent months knocking on doors, talking in churches and holding public meetings.
And while he won big, and thinks it can be done, he says the resistance to change is understandable.
“The middle class in Newark to a large extent was created based upon jobs in the school system and the municipal government,” he says. “So when you talk about having more performance-based accountability, that can be scary.”
That’s something that people in the suburbs can miss. Just as earlier waves of Irish and Italians relied on government jobs to break into the middle class, so did African-Americans when their day came.
Clement Price, a professor of history at Rutgers University and one of the most respected voices in the city, says Jeffries has put his finger on the central political challenge.
“I’m from D.C. and my dad had a government job,” he says. “And on the backs of that job he sent three kids to college. Jobs in the public sector are near and dear to blacks and browns. And once you talk about reforms tied to performance, people do get a bit uncomfortable.”
But Jeffries’ big win shows that reform can sell. Because the city is also full of parents who want better for their children.
Look at the flood of applications to the city’s best charter schools. The TEAM schools, for example, have 1,250 students and a waiting list of over 4,000. Ryan Hill, the director of the schools, gets a stream of letters from desperate parents and kids who lose out.
“It’s awful,” he says. “If the mayor pushes reform he will get a lot of push back. But there are a lot of folks in this city who want reform.”
So how does the $100 million gift from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg fit in?
First, it can finance some of the reforms. It can help expand good charter schools and good traditional schools. It can finance bonuses for good teachers. It can help attract a star superintendent.
