Star Ledger ‘Gov. Christie proposes increase in health-care contributions for public workers’

The Record, Doblin: Put teachers on the table, not in the trash
Monday, January 17, 2011
LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2011, 5:51 PM
By ALFRED P. DOBLIN
RECORD EDITORIAL COLUMNIST

GOVERNOR CHRISTIE came to Paramus last week and, like anyone coming to Paramus, he came to shop. But the governor was not shopping for something; he came to shop his ideas for education reform.

At a Thursday town hall meeting he said, “When you have schools like the 200 chronically failing schools in New Jersey with 104,000 students in them that have been judged to be chronically failing, we’re going to close them and start over.”

Starting over means not just closing these schools, but doing away with teacher tenure and replacing it with merit pay attached to student performance. It also means opening more charter schools.

 Blocking the way is the New Jersey Education Association, according to Christie. The NJEA is the Big Bad Wolf.
Maybe there is some truth to that, but there isn’t just one wolf bearing its teeth on the path to grandma’s high-property-taxed house. Let’s face it: Chris Christie isn’t Little Red Riding Hood.

Two hundred failing schools is unacceptable. But the state Department of Education’s website lists a total of 2,485 schools in New Jersey. That means less than 10 percent are failing. It would seem that the majority of schools, and the teachers inside them, are doing rather well. No doubt, students in failing schools can take little solace in that.

I agree 100 percent with the governor about tenure. I do not believe in guaranteed jobs for life. I do not accept the notion that the current form of tenure allows for the removal of poor-performing teachers. But eliminating tenure without having a viable alternative that does not leave teachers vulnerable to the whims of angry parents and school board members with agendas is equally unacceptable.

What I see as problematic in all the school-reform talk is that none of it acknowledges that while the state has a constitutional obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education, students do not have a constitutional obligation to be willing participants. They can be forced to show up, but they cannot be forced to learn.
Teachers can motivate many students. Great teachers can work some miracles. But there are many factors from home life to language skills to neighborhood safety that affect how a child learns. Public schools are required to take in everybody.
Charter schools have not been shown to be universally better than public schools. Parents who push for their children to be in a charter school are equally likely to push for their children in a public school. One pushing parent is worth more than a room full of pushing Christies.

And I am sick and tired of hearing about the Robert Treat Academy in Newark. The charter school is by all accounts a very fine institution. But it also is the creation of one of the most powerful political figures in New Jersey, Stephen Adubato. Politicians visit it like devout Catholics visit Lourdes. Enough already.

The governor can close every poor performing school in New Jersey tomorrow and replace them with a charter school and there will still be failing schools because if those schools are required to teach everybody, they will have some students who will not get with the program. And if these charter schools toss out the students who do not meet their schools’ criteria, where do these students land?
There is a reason – a reason more complex than tenure – for failing schools. Schools don’t fail in Glen Rock, Ridgewood and Mendham for a reason and it has nothing to do with tenure. It’s stability. It’s parents. It’s safety. It’s many, many things.

The leadership of the NJEA remains a good target because it has been inflexible. It has put its interests ahead of it members. But less than 10 percent of the schools in New Jersey are chronically failing. If teachers, and yes, the NJEA, are to blame for 200 failing schools, they are also responsible for 2,285 schools that are succeeding.

Christie should take credit for raising issues that no public official has dared touch. Everything about education should be on the table – tenure, salaries, pensions, class sizes, federal and state mandates, charter schools – put them all on the table.
I’m sure the audience in Paramus was appreciative of the governor’s tough talk. The governor is passionate and, from my experience with him, it’s real. It’s not generated for the cameras or the polls. He is who he is.

He is a product of public schools. And he needs to remember that. Teachers and their contracts should be on the table; they should not be in the trash.

Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The Record. Contact him at doblin@northjersey.com. Follow AlfredPDoblin on Twitter.
 
Statehouse Bureau ‘Gov. Christie pushes five-year performance review for teachers’
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 9:45 PM     Updated: Friday, January 14, 2011, 8:12 AM
 By Ginger Gibson/Statehouse Bureau

PARAMUS — Gov. Chris Christie, who wants to scrap teacher tenure, today said he would like a system that reviews teacher performance every five years.
 
Christie suggested placing teachers on five-year contracts. When a contract expires, the teacher’s performance would be reviewed and decision would be made whether to renew for another five years, he said today at a town hall meeting in Paramus.
 
"We need to give a teacher enough time to learn their craft," Christie said. "The school district and the teacher get to sit down and decide: is this working. I don’t understand why you can’t do that."
His office said that proposal is not definitive.
 
Christie, who called for an elimination of teacher tenure in his State of the State address on Tuesday, has offered few details about how he would replace it.
 
Currently, after three years of employment, firing a teacher requires a lengthy and costly process of notifications, oversight and legal proceedings. Christie has said this makes it virtually impossible to fire a public school teacher, despite any negative job performance.
 
Christie said a task force is reviewing criteria that would be used to review teachers, after being asked how to prevent teacher contract reviews from becoming a popularity test. The task force will report back March 1.
 
The governor’s proposal drew immediate criticism today from the New Jersey Education Association the state’s largest teachers union. Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the union, said it does not provide enough protection to prevent unfair or political decisions from infiltrating the teacher evaluation process.
 
"This is not reform, it’s patronage," Wollmer said. "We do not need 125,000 more patronage jobs in New Jersey, we already have enough corruption. Your job security under the Christie proposal would be at the whim of a principal who may or may not be acting in the best interest."
 
At the town hall meeting, Christie called attention to the opposition from the teacher’s union to his proposals.
 
"If you saw the teachers union’s response to my speech, you would think I would have advocated to close every public school in New Jersey," Christie said.
 
Wollmer said Christie’s speech was overwhelmingly negative and an assault on public schools. "He says ‘New Jersey failing schools’ like it’s one word," Wollmer said.
 
During Christie’s Tuesday speech, he said failing schools should be closed. "When we have schools like the 200 chronically failing schools in New Jersey, we’re going to close them and start over," Christie said at the town hall today, drawing applause from the crowd.
 

Star Ledger ‘Gov. Christie proposes increase in health-care contributions for public workers’
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 7:47 PM     Updated: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 7:48 PM
 By The Associated Press
 
 
PARAMUS — Gov. Chris Christie proposed significantly higher health insurance premiums for hundreds of thousands of public workers in New Jersey today, saying overly generous benefits are threatening to bankrupt the system.
 
Christie told a packed town hall audience in Bergen County that state and local workers, teachers, police and firefighters must begin paying more for their medical and dental benefits if the system is to remain afloat. The health benefits fund is $67 billion shy of meeting its eventual obligations.
 
"We have to have a plan where everybody has skin in the game," Christie said to applause from a supportive crowd of 500 in Paramus.
 
Christie hosted his first town hall meeting with voters since unveiling his agenda for the coming year on Tuesday. He said changes in health and pension benefits, and overhauling teacher tenure are top priorities.
 
Christie wants benefits changes that make the health insurance system more like the private sector or the federal government, with employees paying about one-third of the costs of whatever benefits plan they choose. The government picks up the other two-thirds.
 
That would amount to a significant increase from the 1.5 percent of salary employees now pay. A teacher earning $60,000 now pays $900 a year toward a plan that costs $22,000, Christie said. Under his proposal, that teacher would contribute $7,333 a year for an identical plan.
 
The changes also could result in inferior benefits, as some workers would be forced to accept plans with higher deductibles and co-pays or limited choice of doctors, to keep down costs.
 
Christie said health benefits for current workers and retirees cost New Jersey taxpayers $4.3 billion a year and growing. He said the state cannot afford to have worker benefits eating a larger and larger portion of state, local and school budgets.
 
The governor also renewed his call for changes to the pension system that include raising the retirement age to 65, from 62, rolling back a 9 percent pension increase granted a decade ago and requiring all workers to contribute 8.5 percent of their salaries toward retirement, a higher portion than all but police and firefighters pay now.
 
Christie said adopting major changes to the pension system this year would cut the funds' $34 billion unfunded liability in half in 30 years.
 
He said his proposals "introduce fairness and shared sacrifice in these tough economic times."
Christie called on the Legislature to act before recessing in July.
But it is unclear how far Democrats who control the Senate and Assembly — and the legislative agenda — will be willing to go amid opposition from the unions, which are major constituencies, in an election year.
 
Christie said he is proposing the changes to shore up the health and pension systems, not just to be tightfisted. He said the changes are part of his long-term plan to reduce state debt and introduce more fiscal responsibility to stabilize property tax growth.
 
The Legislature enacted some pension and health benefits reforms last March, but those affect new workers, not the existing work force and retirees.
 
Despite a new 2 percent cap on property tax increases, New Jerseyans are likely to see their property taxes continue to rise at a rate that exceeds 2 percent. A look at property taxation around the state by The Star-Ledger published today shows local taxes jumped 7 percent last year. Less than 25 percent of taxpayers saw increases of under 2 percent, the analysis showed.
 
The governor also beat the drum today for major education changes that include scrapping teacher tenure, creating a merit-pay system, introducing school choice, adding charter schools and closing poor-performing schools.
 
"This is the fight," he said, referencing his ongoing battle with the state teachers union, which opposes most of his proposals.