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9-30-13 Education Issues in the News
Press of Atlantic City - State evaluations begin determining future of New Jersey's teachers

Burlington County Times - New ballots to keep partisan politics out of school elections

Star Ledger Editorial - South Hunterdon's school consolidation a wise model for saving tax dollars: Editorial

Press of Atlantic City - State evaluations begin determining future of New Jersey's teachers

By DIANE D’AMICO Education Writer | Posted: Sunday, September 29, 2013 11:00 pm

Public school teachers in New Jersey have begun the first year of state-required evaluations that could affect their tenure or job status.

But in many districts, it is students who are already being tested. To determine next spring how much students learned from their teachers, school officials are assessing students now to find out how much they already know.

In Mullica Township this month, all students took an online test in math and language arts to set a baseline for performance. Superintendent Brenda Harring-Marro said they explained to students and parents that the test was not being graded but would be used to help teachers do a better job.

“It is beautiful if it all works out,” she said. “Teachers won’t overemphasize what students already know, and it gives us the opportunity to individualize instruction to their needs.”

Students worked at their own pace and had no time limit to complete the tests.

“It was easy,” sixth-grader Kaylea Ford, 11, said of the math test. She did find the language arts test more challenging.

“I like math, and it was fun doing it on the computer,” she said.

Nationally, there have been support and criticism of high-stakes teacher evaluations in which poor student test scores could cost teachers their jobs. Financial incentives to improve teaching were included in the federal No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top initiatives.

Supporters say studies showing virtually all teachers being evaluated as effective prove that existing systems help neither teachers nor students. Critics say that using annual state test scores to rate teachers is too small and narrow a measure and that results fluctuate so much a teacher easily can go from excellent to failure in a year.

The AchieveNJ teacher-evaluation process tries to find a middle ground. Developed as part of the TEACHNJ tenure-overhaul law, regulations were approved by the state Board of Education this month after a period of public hearings that drew 635 comments, mostly from teachers. The process has multiple measures that include test scores, but it gives more weight to classroom observations.

Early response this year is a mix of hope and anxiety.

If done well, the new evaluations could improve teaching and learning. If the process is ineffective, inaccurate or too politically manipulated, it could set up students and teachers for failure.

“You don’t build a system to destroy people, you build it to help,” New Jersey Department of Education implementation manager Anthony Fitzpatrick told teachers at a recent workshop at Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, during which he tried to reassure teachers the first year or two would be a learning process. “We want to promote collaboration.”

But the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, is concerned that the process is being so rushed it could lead to abuse.

“No one is intimidated by a good evaluation,” NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said. “But our members feel like their careers are on the line.”

In grades four through eight, when students take an annual state test, those test scores will factor into a Student Growth Percentile, or SGP, that will account for 30 percent of the teacher’s evaluation. Fifteen percent of the evaluation will be based on other Student Growth Objectives, or SGOs, established by teachers and their principals. The rest will be based on as many as three classroom observations, not all done by the same person.

Locally, districts are taking different approaches. Some are adapting evaluation programs they had already started, others are using the new evaluations as an opportunity for change.

“We’re doing the best we can,” said Steven Ciccariello, superintendent of the Greater Egg Harbor Regional School District. “No one really likes it, but we are trying to come up with ways to do that that will be successful.”

Leah McDonnell, a school board member in Estell Manor and math teacher at Oakcrest High School, said there likely would be more testing than just a midterm and a final, but in a more ongoing and less formal process.

“Not all assessments are tests,” she said, noting that the “problem of the day” all students do as they arrive can quickly tell her how well they grasp a concept.

“Those kinds of assessments are for the teachers,” she said. “But we will have to monitor growth more.”

One thing everyone agrees on is that training the teachers and administrators is crucial to success. Richard Stockton College’s Southern Regional Institute and Educational Technology Training Center has done more than 100 workshops in 40 area school districts this year. Patricia Weeks, director of the institute, said they just went back to Toms River to review the process with principals because district officials wanted to make sure they were all doing the same thing.

“Consistency is important,” Weeks said. “The larger districts are particularly concerned about making sure everyone is on the same page.”

Many area districts are using the evaluation model developed by former educator Charlotte Danielson at Princeton, though other models are approved by the state.

Thomas Baruffi, superintendent of Linwood Public Schools and Mainland Regional High School, said they were using the model developed by Robert Marzano of Learning Sciences International in Blairsville, Pa., which includes ongoing assessment. Baruffi said they would begin their SGOs in October, which will include student preassessments, both teacher-developed and standardized, depending on the course.

Absecon, which is using the Danielson model, has completed staff training and will develop their SGOs during an Oct. 4 in-service day, Superintendent James Giaquinto said. He said that because the SGOs must be measurable, pretesting would be used in many content areas.

Northfield is also using Danielson. Superintendent Janice Fipp said the model was not revolutionary but had clearly defined expectations for planning and preparation, for the classroom environment, for the instruction provided and for teacher professional responsibilities.

“Once the expectations are clear, then the communication between and among the school administration and teachers and staff is excellent,” she said.

Fipp said Northfield had already been using formative assessments, or pretests, to get more information about each student and his or her needs and would continue to do so.

Weeks said Stockton used the Danielson model in its evaluations of student teachers in the teacher-education program, so graduates will be used to the process and what is expected of them once they start working.

Judee DeStefano, associate director for special projects at Stockton’s Southern Regional Institute, said anxiety had lessened with the training, especially in districts that had already been working to improve their evaluations.

“I think teachers are realizing it’s not that much different, just more organized and detailed,” she said.

Contact Diane D'Amico:

609-272-7241

DDamico@pressofac.com

 

Burlington County Times - New ballots to keep partisan politics out of school elections

By Danielle Camilli Staff writer | Posted: Monday, September 30, 2013 5:45 am

MOUNT HOLLY — After complaints and concerns about the placement of nonpartisan school board candidates on the general election ballot last year, the Burlington County clerk has redesigned it to eliminate any confusion.

Last November was the first time the school board candidates, who previously were elected in their own races in April, ran in the fall election and shared the ballot with political races for local, county and state offices.

The placement of the board candidates in proximity to the political candidates and their alignment in what some argued looked like the same column raised concerns in the days before the election. At least two incumbent school board members in Willingboro and Edgewater Park blamed their losses on the positioning.

County Clerk Timothy Tyler said last week that he reviewed the ballot shortly after last year’s election, met with stakeholders, and began a redesign.

“Last year, voters had difficulty separating and distinguishing between partisan and nonpartisan elections on the ballots,” Tyler said, noting that he believes the redesign helps “protect school board elections from partisan politics.”

Last year, the New Jersey School Boards Association, in a letter to the Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey, complained that the school board candidates appeared in “columns one and two, directly below the names of Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively, for federal, county and municipal office.”

On Thursday, Tyler unveiled a reorganized ballot that moves the school races as far away as possible from the partisan government races. Ballot design is at the discretion of county clerks; there is no standard or state-mandated ballot.

“We’ve done an extreme makeover of the election ballots,” Tyler said. “Voters will see an entirely new ballot layout, one that they can readily understand. This is particularly important in a year when so many contests are listed.”

Now, referendum questions on the ballot occupy the space under the partisan government races. There are two state questions as well as local questions in Chesterfield, Medford, Mount Holly, Shamong and Southampton. The general election ballot this year includes contests for governor, state legislators, county freeholder, sheriff and clerk, as well as local contests in 27 of the county’s 40 municipalities.

The move shifts the school board election away from these races and places it in its own clearly labeled box under and to the far right of the political contests.

“It is a very full ballot,” Tyler said.

He said that vote-by-mail ballots have started to go out and that sample ballots will begin to be mailed soon. They will also be available online at www.co.burlington.nj.us/countyclerk under the Election Services tab. Anyone with questions can call 609-265-5229.

 

Star Ledger Editorial - South Hunterdon's school consolidation a wise model for saving tax dollars: Editorial

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board The Star-Ledger on September 30, 2013 at 7:21 AM, updated September 30, 2013 at 8:10 AM

Successes in South Hunterdon and Prince­ton should be applauded as examples for others to follow.

About 30 people attended a Town Hall meeting in Lambertville to learn about the proposal to consolidate the four South Hunterdon school districts into a single pre-K-12 district. Voters approved by plan in a referendum on Sept. 24.Warren Cooper 

Last week’s landslide vote in southern Hunterdon County, where residents approved a plan to combine four small school districts into one, is an encouraging step toward sanity in government-heavy New Jersey. The first domino of many.

Maybe that’s too optimistic. Although the new K-12 district is the state’s first multiple-district merger in nearly 20 years, there are currently more campaigns to disband regional school districts — breaking them up into smaller, more expensive pieces — than there are to merge districts.

The key to cutting property taxes is cutting costs. Property taxes fund schools, towns and counties. The simplest way to spend less on government is to actually have less government. That’s where consolidation comes in.

On Tuesday, residents of Stockton, Lambertville and West Amwell voted overwhelmingly — 86 percent in favor — to dissolve their three elementary-only districts, plus the regional high school district, and create a combined K-12, starting in 2014. One school board and superintendent instead of four. Consolidated buying and bill-paying. One-fourth the budgets, audits and state reports.

There are educational wins, too: It might not make sense for each primary school to have its own teacher in specialized areas, such as sports or music, but a larger district can hire one for all three.

As smart as consolidation seems, it’s been slow to gain traction. The Prince­tons merged this year after 50 years of trying. Fanwood and Scotch Plains already share a school district, and now are studying a municipal merger.

But a tax-cutting proposal to share police across Somerset County failed. And across New Jersey, towns want out of regional school compacts over uneven tax burdens. Senate President Steve Sweeney’s bill to withhold state aid from towns that could save money by sharing, but choose not to, is stuck.

South Hunterdon’s new district found a mix in which all taxpayers share the $500,000-a-year savings, illustrating the possibility. As local governments struggle to stay under the state’s 2 percent budget cap, towns and school districts will look for new ways to save.

Successes in South Hunterdon and Prince­ton should be applauded as examples for others to follow.