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NJ Spotlight -Analysis: Christie's Options Limited When It Comes to Plans for PARCC Testing…The governor has hinted publicly at a compromise on new PARCC tests, but what will he do and when will he do it?
NJ Spotlight - Profile: NJ High School Principal Ahead Of Curve On Technology -- and Tweets With 64,500 followers on Twitter, Eric Sheninger is the embodiment of using technology as a teaching tool
Star Ledger - Poll: Should NJ extend state financial aid to some unauthorized immigrant college students?
NJ Spotlight -Analysis: Christie's Options Limited When It Comes to Plans for PARCC Testing
John Mooney | July 9, 2014
The governor has hinted publicly at a compromise on new PARCC tests, but what will he do and when will he do it?
When Gov. Chris Christie made a comment last month at one of his town-hall-style meetings about a compromise concerning the new PARCC exams, he sparked off a guessing game.
What would the governor propose for the controversial rollout of the online national tests? How would that fit with the Legislature’s apparent intent to press a long review -- and delay -- on the impact of the new tests? And when would Christie actually come forward with his compromise?
Related Links
Legislature’s Efforts to Slow Down PARCC Parked, at Least for Now
At stake is an important measurement of how thousands of teachers and hundreds of schools will be judged next year with the advent of the online Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests, which are tied to the Common Core State Standards.
Since Christie’s comment, the key players have been quiet about the ongoing talks concerning a compromise. One of those who has been keeping his own counsel is acting state Education Commissioner David Hespe, the man who will ultimately have to implement PARCC and any compromise.
But the options are pretty well known to those following the ongoing saga, with the key ingredients sure to include some kind of high-level review of student testing and at least some adjustment of the weights such testing will have on how teachers and schools are judged -- at least for the time being.
Task Force to Come
There is little disagreement in the Legislature over calls for a state task force to take a hard look at the launch of the new testing.
The bill now in the Senate and passed the Assembly by an overwhelming and bipartisan majority calls for a new Education Reform Review Task Force of 15 members to look at the impact of the testing before any consequences are tied to it. The bill says such a review could take up to two years, effectively delaying the consequences until 2018.
State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the influential chair of the Senate education committee, has separately called for a group to study all standardized testing in the schools. Her bill does not call for any postponement of the use of the testing in teacher evaluations.
But whichever is chosen or if another path is taken altogether, the details of that review is where the disagreements may arise. Will it look at all testing or just PARCC? What would be the powers of the task force once that review is completed?
And would the task force be appointed from the various stakeholder groups, as dictated by the legislative bills, with certain responsibility to the governor and the Legislature?
Under the approved Assembly bill now in the Senate, the Education Reform Review Task Force would be 15 members, nine appointed by the governor -- including the commissioner -- and six by the Legislature.
Under Ruiz’s bill, the task force would number 16 members, with a similar breakdown, but more explicit direction on which associations and groups would be represented.
How much will the tests count?
The other key question is how much -- or if -- the administration will bend on the plans to use student progress on state tests to count for as much as 30 percent of the evaluation for teachers in testing grades and subjects.
In the first year, that’s teachers of math and language arts in grades 4-8, but the numbers will grow with PARCC becoming an annual test for grades 3-11.
The Christie administration has contended that the state is required under federal regulations tied to its waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act to base a “significant” portion of teachers’ evaluations on student achievement.
But the question is how to define “significant,” and whether it could be reduced to 20 percent or even 10 percent while the tests are launched -- either one a figure large enough to be a factor in a teacher’s rating, but small enough not be the determining one.
The likeliest path in any compromise would include some kind of executive order from the governor, and legislators have said as much publicly. But there is also the possibility of state regulation changes before the State Board of Education, a slower process. Nothing is so far planned for today’s meeting of the board, and it doesn’t meet for another month after that.
The timing
That has been the biggest question since Christie’s remarks in Haddonfield: when would he make the announcement?
Before that, Hespe had long said that he hoped no final decisions would come until the fall, when the first results on the existing testing’s impact on teacher ratings are available.
But the Legislature has appeared to move up that timetable with its actions on the PARCC bill, and there is a clear sense among observers some action would come this week.
Of course, that is what many of them said last week, too, but the state Senate has already twice put off a vote on the bill in deference to the governor’s plans, and its leaders have said it may not do so a third time when it meets Thursday.
NJ Spotlight - Profile: NJ High School Principal Ahead Of Curve On Technology -- and Tweets
John Mooney | July 9, 2014
With 64,500 followers on Twitter, Eric Sheninger is the embodiment of using technology as a teaching tool
Name: Eric Sheninger
Resume: New Milford High School principal since 2007, former vice principal and athletic director. Biology teacher at Watchung Hills Regional High School, 2000-2004. Speaker, blogger, and author -- including “Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times.”
Why he matters: Sheninger has been an outspoken advocate for technology in teaching -- as a tool rather than an end in itself. With a variety of awards to his name, he helped launch the annual Edscape Conference at New Milford High School as a professional development program focused on innovation for his teachers in 2010, and has seen it grow to more than 400 attendees from across the region -- as well as Mexico and Canada. This year’s conference will be held October 18.
In the classroom: Under Sheninger’s leadership, New Milford is among the state’s pioneers in integrating technology into instruction, using Internet tools and social media in teaching everything from U.S. history to marine biology, his first love before becoming a teacher.
The Twitter thing: Sheninger -- better known as @NMHS_Principal to his 64,500 followers on Twitter -- expounds on and aggregates best practices for schools, both with and without technology. His rise to one of the most popular education hash tags started with an article about the different communication tools available to principals and took off from there.
A tweet from last week: “If standardized tests are the endgame of schools then we fail our students. . . ”
Philosophy: “Technology will never replace teachers and administrators. . . We really focus on pedagogy first. Our golden rule is pedagogy first, technology second, where appropriate.“
Social media in school: Whether it's video conferencing with best-selling authors or using Instagram to present lessons from the play “A Raisin in the Sun,” Sheninger’s teachers have integrated the connections created by social media into how students learn.
Why that matters: “We need to do our best to engage students. They are more engaged outside of school than inside of school. That is what social media has taught us, how to meet our learners where they’re at, while creating a culture that has them solve problems, think critically, be creative and collaborate more.”
Student followers: Sheninger said he doesn’t count his Twitter followers by category, but certainly hears from a few of his charges -- online and off. “They are not shy,” he said. “Some students have even called us out for clarifications, and we’ve gotten into some very enlightening conversations about how schools are structured and function.”
Best part of the job: “Really the best part of my day is when I’m doing walk-throughs in the classroom and just observing what teachers and students are doing and all the great things they do, day in and day out.”
New teacher evaluation: Sheninger has seen both the strengths and weakness of the state's new mandates for teacher evaluation. The attention to classroom visits has been a plus, the paperwork and other procedural tasks less so. “If there has been a positive, it allows us to be more visible in the classroom,” he said. “On the negative side, the increases in the paperwork, that does severely impact our abilities to be visible and to have meaningful conversations [with teachers] that are not formal.”
A proposition before policy: “I’d love to see those individuals that are crafting policy shadow school leaders and teachers throughout the day to see first-hand not only the work we’re doing, but the meaningful work we are doing that doesn’t get in the headlines dominated by PARCC and Common Core. Come see what we are doing in educating the whole child and how we are preparing them for jobs and careers that have not been created yet.”
“There is a disconnect, many of us feel, between what is really going on in schools and the policies being enacted to improve education.”
Age: 39
Family: Born and raised in Warren County. Sheninger and his wife, Melissa, a Staten Island high school guidance counselor, are parents of an 8-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter.
Star Ledger - Poll: Should NJ extend state financial aid to some unauthorized immigrant college students?
By Brent Johnson/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger
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Should N.J. extend state financial aid to undocumented immigrants who went to high school in state?
Yes,
No.
I don't know.
Vote View Results
<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/8171142/">Should N.J. extend state financial aid to undocumented immigrants who went to high school in state?</a>TRENTON — Should New Jersey extend state financial aid to college students who grew up in New Jersey but had immigrated to the U.S. illegally?
In December, Gov. Chris Christie signed the DREAM act, a bill pushed by Democratic lawmakers that allows immigrants who were brought to the county illegally but attended at least three years of high school in the state to pay in-state tuition at New Jersey's public colleges and university.
Still, the Republican governor signed the measure only after conditionally vetoed an earlier version of it, striking a provision that allowed those students to qualify for state financial aid programs.
"Giving undocumented out-of-state students benefits that out-of-state citizens aren't eligible for, I'm not in favor of," Christie said last year.
Democrats tried again earlier this year, inserting a line into the state budget to make those students eligible for state-funded Tuition Aid Grants. But Christie vetoed the line last week.
But Democrats aren't done. State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) introduced legislation later in the week that would make those students not only eligible for those grants but other types of state financial aid, as well.
In December, the state Office of Legislative Services cited an estimate from the American Immigration Council that there are 28,464 people ages 15 to 30 in New Jersey who arrived as children. The office then calculated that assuming 950 in one year graduated from high school, went on to a public college, and won the average Tuition Aid Grant award of $5,466, it would cost the program $5.2 million — or about 1.5 percent of the state's total appropriation for the grants.
"These kids are spending dollars here. They live here. They're actually now getting tuition equality," said Preito, who moved to the U.S. from Cuba as a child. "They should be afforded the right to make college affordable to them."
Where do you stand? Vote in the informal, unscientific poll above.
