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Department of Education submits its latest Race to the Top application today
Njspotlight.com - Latest Round of Charter Applications Filed with Education Department…In a field 42 charter applicants, some have been considered -- and rejected -- before
Department of Education submits Race to the Top application today
Njspotlight.com - Latest Round of Charter Applications Filed with Education Department…In a field 42 charter applicants, some have been considered -- and rejected -- before
Department of Education submits Race to the Top application today
Trenton, NJ - The Department of Education today submitted the state's
application for the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge to the US
Department of Education. This application would help to improve the
quality of programs for over 75,000 low-income children from birth to
age five in non-Abbott school districts across New Jersey. To advance
this initiative, Governor Christie signed Executive Order 77
establishing the Early Learning Commission, which is charged with
recommending improvements to the quality of, and access to, early
learning and development programs in the state by coordinating early
childhood education, health, and development programs across Departments
and expanding New Jersey's Quality Rating Improvement System. This
Commission will be chaired by the Commissioner of Education and include
the Chairperson of the New Jersey Council for Young Children and
representatives from the Department of Children and Families, the
Department of Health and Senior Services, and the Department of Human
Services.
"We are committed to ensuring that we prepare all students, regardless
of zip code, for success in college and career. In order to do that,
children must first be ready for kindergarten," said Acting Commissioner
Christopher D. Cerf. "Through close collaboration with the Departments
of Children and Families, Health and Senior Services, and Human
Services, and stakeholders from across the state, we have developed a
proposal that we believe will truly transform early learning and
development programs in New Jersey and will strengthen early literacy
skills. While the application now is out of our hands and we can't
control whether we win this competition, we can control the steps we
take to begin to move this from a plan to reality. We are already hard
at work with partners from across the state to lay the groundwork for
this new system."
The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge application builds on the
success of the existing State Preschool Program to provide support and
oversight to ensure that over 75,000 low-income children from birth to
age five in early childhood centers throughout New Jersey all benefit
from a high-quality program. The plan does not create new early
childhood programs, but does expand the support and oversight of
existing programs serving low-income students across the state.
The application is based around four major priorities:
1.Improve the quality of existing early learning programs by expanding
NJ's Quality Rating Improvement System. NJ's Quality Rating Improvement
System sets standards for high-quality early childhood programs,
assesses program quality, and provides training and technical assistance
to operators to improve. First piloted by the Build New Jersey Partners
for Early Learning (Build NJ) consortium in 2007, NJ's Quality Rating
Improvement System sets high standards for programs in six key areas:
program and learning environment, family engagement, health and safety,
professional development, personnel, and business practices. Through
NJ's Quality Rating Improvement System, participating early childhood
programs will receive a state quality rating, which will serve as a
"Consumer Reports" for parents in evaluating early childhood centers for
their children.
2.Improve educator effectiveness in existing early childhood programs.
In order to ensure that all children are served by high-quality staff,
the plan will offer participating educators training in comprehensive
early childhood curricula and assessment systems through regional
trainings. In addition, the state will focus on increasing the number of
early childhood educators with core knowledge and greater credentials by
providing tuition assistance and support to existing educators to obtain
early childhood credentials.
3.Increase family access to information. In addition to providing
families with program quality information through NJ's Quality Rating
Improvement System, which will help parents make informed decisions when
selecting early childhood programs, the plan will create county-level
councils that will engage parents and community members about the extent
to which NJ's Quality Rating Improvement System works for families.
4.Improve use of data to strengthen programs and child performance. The
plan will connect data systems across state departments through the
creation of NJ-EASEL (New Jersey Enterprise Analysis for Early
Learning), which will improve tracking of individual children and
programs. In addition, it will enable a study to ensure that NJ's
Quality Rating Improvement System effectively differentiates quality of
program and the development of children. Lastly, the plan will capture
children's competencies and skills upon entry to kindergarten to better
understand how well current programs are preparing children for
kindergarten.
The development of the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge
application was a collaborative effort across state agencies, led by the
Department of Education. The DOE coordinated over the last several
months with leaders from the Department of Children and Families, the
Department of Human Services, and the Department of Health and Senior
Services. In addition, the application has received letters of support
from stakeholders across the state including school districts, higher
education institutions, early learning and development organizations,
community-based organizations, legislators, foundations, professional
associations, and families.
The Executive Order can be found HERE
http://www.state.nj.us/education/news/2011/1019rttt.htm
Njspotlight.com - Latest Round of Charter Applications Filed with Education Department…In a field 42 charter applicants, some have been considered -- and rejected -- before
By John Mooney, October 19 in Education|Post a Comment
Here we go again.
With the previous round just finished, another 42 applications for new charter schools were filed by this week's deadline. Some are sure to spark off the by-now recognizable debate about charters in some familiar -- and not so familiar -- places.
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Three of the most contentious applications from the last round -- all rejected -- have filed again. They are a Hebrew language school in Middlesex County, a Mandarin language school in Essex County, and a charter high school for Montclair that is now making its fifth try.
In all, 12 of the 42 applications are making at least their second bids for the state's approval, according to the education department.
With much of the tensions over charters coming out of the suburbs, there are new proposals for suburban communities in Bergen County, in Clifton of Passaic County, and in Voorhees in Camden County, which is already contesting a new school approved in nearby Cherry Hill.
There is also another virtual charter being proposed, seeking to be the third approved by the state. The Garden State Virtual Academy has bid to be an online school out of Teaneck for 1,000 students, kindergarten through 12th grade. Virtual schools have already been approved in Newark and in Monmouth County, although neither has opened yet.
Still, the vast majority of the bids remain in urban areas, with four applications each in the cities of Camden, Newark, Jersey City, and Trenton. Essex County is seeing the most applications of any of the counties, with eight.
New Jersey now has 80 charter schools in operation, serving close to 30,000 students. Another 25 are slated to open next fall. Four of those were approved by the state in the last round of applications, out of 50 applicants.