NJ Left Behind

Sweeney Shuts Down Cerf Hearing

2012-02-14T10:25:00.004-05:00

(Acting) Comm. Chris Cerf was scheduled to appear Thursday before the Senate for a confirmation hearing, but Sen. Sweeney has cancelled the appearance because he's not sure that Cerf actually moved from his former town of Montclair, in Essex County. Due to an archaic Senate practice called "Senatorial Courtesy" the representative of the nominee's county can forestall the confirmation, which is exactly what Sen. Ron Rice has been doing. Apparently Cerf is also claiming that he has a home in Somerset County (where Sen. Nick Scutari had indicated that he wouldn't get in his way). But can Cerf be in two places at the same time?

That's a far dicier trick than having "Acting" appended to his title. That qualification has no impact on his ability to exercise his duties and responsibilities; the current theatrics serves only to make Rice appear recalcitrant and, well, discourteous. Maybe someone should just hand Cerf an Equity card and let him do his job.

Quote of the Day

2012-02-14T10:03:00.004-05:00

In today’s New York Times, Jim Manly, principal of Eva Moscowitz’s Success Academy Charter School, weighs in on a topic that preoccupies many of those concerned about the best way to improve public education. Is change best achieved incrementally – through slow, deliberate steps that marshal buy-in from all stakeholders – or is change best achieved more radically, fueled by a sense of urgency that kids currently trapped in chronically failing schools can’t wait anymore?

The most dramatic example of this dispute between incrementalism and aggressive movement is the falling out of colleagues Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch over the acceptable pace of school reform. Finn has been quoted as saying, “Diane says ‘let’s return to the old school system’ and I say, ‘Let’s blow it up.’”

Here’s Principal Manly. (His references include Eva Moscowitz and Wendy Kopp, who created Teach for America.)

I see a lot of similarities in Eva and Wendy’s drive and determination. There are so many people willing to say you’re going too fast or you’re being too bold or too aggressive and these things are incremental. For me there’s a real urgency to this work. Both Eva and Wendy have been very helpful in making me understand that if you continue to listen to everybody’s take-it-slow approach, we won’t be there at the end of the day. They’ve been big influences on me in terms of how I want our teachers to view their work with their scholars, that there isn’t always tomorrow. That this is day we’ve been given. Some people say, give the public schools more time. We’ve been hearing this for generations. These kids don’t have more time. They don’t get to say I’ll wait five or six more years for this school to get fixed. By then they’ll be in eighth grade, reading at a third grade level.

Camden Flunks QSAC

2012-02-13T13:34:00.004-05:00

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Camden Public Schools has failed the State’s Quality Single Accountability Continuum (QSAC) performance review in every one of the five categories except for Financial Management. The district received failing grades in four of the five categories - instruction and program (7%); operations (47%); personnel (9%); and governance (33%). It received 79% in fiscal management, which acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said was "mostly because the district was checked daily by a state-appointed fiscal monitor.”

This is only surprising because Camden’s administrators and school board members approved a self-evaluation based on the same rubric and gave itself passing grades in every category. For example, the district awarded itself a top score in Personnel, but the State gave it a 9%. In Instruction and Program, the district gave itself a 67%; the State gave it a 7%.

Here’s the district’s self-evaluation using QSAC.

It’s not supposed to work this way. Answers to QSAC questions are supposed to be data-based, not matters of opinion. For example, in the Instruction section districts are allotted specific points for how students perform on standardized tests, whether lesson plans are aligned with the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards, if the Board adopts mandated materials, student attendance records, etc.

The discrepancies between the state and district evaluations evoked distress from Camden’s Mayor Dana Redd ("The district is in disarray, and we need help."), David Sciarra of Education Law Center ("The children have effectively lost a year”), and Board President Susan Dunbar-Bey ("In instruction [7 percent] that could not possibly be correct. I don't believe it.” School Superintendent Bessie LeFra Young, who has been absent for 221 days over the last two years, had no comment.

The Logic of "Life's Not Fair" in Public Education

2012-02-13T10:00:00.005-05:00

On Friday Alfred Doblin, editorialist for The Record, tried to justify the logic behind NJEA Executive Director Vince Giordano’s comments on the radio show N.J. Capitol Report last Sunday. For those of you just tuning in, Giordano was asked about his opposition to the Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA), which would provide corporate-sponsored scholarships to some poor kids in poor cities. From the Star-Ledger: “Commenting about how the poor can’t always attend private and charter schools, Giordano said, ‘Life’s not always fair and I’m sorry about that.’”

It’s a comment up there with Romney’s “I’m not concerned about the very poor”: insensitive, clumsy, and, possibly, unintended. Look, everyone has an off day or says something less than felicitous, especially under the pressure of a radio show. But, interestingly, Doblin takes Giordano at his word – life’s not always fair -- and follows the line of reasoning to justify an educational strategy that diminishes choice.

Doblin makes an assumption familiar to both proponents and detractors of school choice: if you reduce resources to impoverished schools, the students left behind suffer even more simply by virtue of having no options other than attending those impoverished schools. Resources in this case can mean money (not a factor in OSA, but certainly one when charter schools spring up) or motivated students with proactive parents.

And the price paid by the remaining students – a less scholarly atmosphere, perhaps, or less parent involvement, or reduction in total resources – is too high to justify the benefit to the students removed from the traditional public school.

The minority interest – in this case the student with an alternative educational setting or the parents who are facilitating the exit from traditional failing schools – is less compelling than the majority interest – those students who remain. We sacrifice the few to (possibly – there’s no data on this) preserve the mediocre circumstances of the many.

Here’s Doblin:

Taking public money out of the public schools has a negative affect (sic) on the students left in those schools. In many cases, the children of uninvolved parents or guardians are the children who struggle most in failing schools. These kids don’t have an advocate to put them into lotteries for charter schools and their parents don’t have the wherewithal to get them into private schools.

Yet when I have asked supporter after supporter of charter schools what happens to the children left in the failing ones, the response is always something like this: We can only help so many. Isn’t it better that some kids are getting a better education?

What is so different about “life’s not always fair” and that? It’s perhaps nuanced better, but the bottom line is that all these so-called school reform plans pull money out of public schools, leaving less money for the students left inside them. And that is not fair.

Doblin makes no effort to elucidate any redeeming qualities to continued attendance in traditional public schools in cities like Camden or Newark or Trenton. He restricts his argument to the impact of the remaining kids who don’t escape through either OSA or an available slot in a charter or one of the few seats in NJ’s Interdistrict Public School Choice Program. The needs of the many – those who don’t get out – outweigh the needs of the few -- those who might get out but must sacrifice their potential success to preserve the status quo.

Let’s think about this argument outside the educational arena – let say, housing. What if there was a program that provided nice clean apartments to poor people but left those without access in slums. Would Doblin argue that everyone should remain in slums because taking out some people has a “negative” effect on residents left behind there? What about health care? What if there was a program that provided quality medical resources for young poor pregnant teens. But the program doesn’t serve everyone – just those who have an advocate or an “involved” guardian to help them apply. Should we shut down the program because only some babies would healthier?

Doblin’s argument – which may or may not be Giordano’s – is a deterministic argument you make about other people’s children, never about your own. After all, New Jersey parents of public school students exercise choice all the time, as long as they have the money to either move to a better district or pay tuition to parochial or private schools. Life’s fair to them. It’s the kids stuck in districts targeted by OSA (and, increasingly, charter schools) who must endure the slings and arrows of an unfair public school system, opportunities be damned.

Sunday Leftovers

2012-02-12T11:03:00.006-05:00

When NJEA’s Vince Giordano commented that “Life’s not always fair and I’m sorry about that,” he was responding to a question regarding the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would allow a small number of poor kids to attend parochial and private schools. Senators Tom Kean Jr. and Ray Lesniak, sponsors of OSA, had this to say:

Sen. Kean: “Mr. Giordano’s remarks in opposition to OSA show a startling contempt for children and parents of limited means who are forced into failing schools by virtue of their zip code.His remarks, however, actually strengthen the argument in favor of the bill: that the educational establishment is not able or interested in providing an immediate remedy for students in these districts.”

Sen. Lesniak: “Life is only unfair when we don’t have the courage to change the things we can. And it will continue to be unfair as long as those with the ability to do something to make it fair stand idly by and become resigned to the unfairness. Children from poor families forced to go to chronically failing schools deserve an opportunity to get a quality education. They deserve better from all of us.”

Though here’s a try at an immediate remedy: officials with Trenton Public Schools have announced that they’re establishing separate schools for elementary and middle school-aged students, instead of K-8 schools. This is not connected to a recent incident where a volunteer fended off a knife attack from an intruder peeping into the girls’ bathroom at Parker Elementary Schools.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Camden School Board was pretty frustrated by the district’s presentation of the $315 million budget for the 2012-13 school year. Disappointments included a total of 4 sheets of paper “with a bunch of numbers,” conflicting estimates of state aid, no accounting of extra aid or the district’s decision last year to pay $700K for extra police officers. Board members also found the three district goals confusing, which were prominently displayed on the “draft budget.” They are “increase student achievement in language arts,” “improve and expand the infusion of technology,” and “provide a safe, secure, healthy, and efficient environment.”

An internal investigation of the Elizabeth School District found that there is “no evidence of widespread patronage, political shakedowns and nepotism within one of the state’s largest school systems.” The investigation was prompted by a series of articles by the Ledger’s Ted Sherman detailing widespread corruption. The investigation (see here for report) was conducted by former State Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, who was paid more than $500K. (Maybe they threw in a free lunch.)

From USA Today: "New Jersey teachers believe the current teacher evaluation system is subjective and does not help them do their jobs better, a study commissioned by two education reform groups concluded following an unprecedented series of focus groups with nearly 300 teachers."

The Senate and Assembly Education Committees have passed a draft bill that would raise the drop-out age from 16 to 18.

Sen. Steve Sweeney is pushing a bill that would expand shared services by school districts and municipalities. Spotlight here; bill here.

The Courier Post Editorial Board urges the Legislature to pass Sen. Teresa Ruiz's tenure reform bill: "It is painfully obvious that current tenure law has gotten in the way of educating students, and enshrined mediocrity, or worse, as the status quo. When both Republicans and Democrats get behind this reform, when the Legislature and the governor are getting closer and closer to deciding precisely what needs to be done and when half the country has already made sweeping changes, it is clear that the time has come to modernize tenure law in New Jersey."

The Asbury Park Press's John Schoonejongen wonders whether courtesy will prevail at Ed. Comm. Cerf's confirmation hearing on Thursday.

NJ Spotlight notes that more than 300 school districts could move elections to November. (Actually, the final total could be higher: current tally from NJSBA is 277, and the deadline's not til Friday.) Also see Spotlight's piece on the NJ DOE's plan to expand the teacher evaluation pilot to another 30 districts in September, instead of the original plan to expand state-wide in 2012-13.

NCLB Waiver Update

2012-02-10T10:05:00.005-05:00

From Politics K-12:

Ten of 11 states that applied for waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act have received that flexibility from federal officials, while one of them, New Mexico, has not yet been granted it, the U.S. Department of Education said today.

The states awarded waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

The waivers allow states to escape from some of the central provisions and sanctions associated with the decade-old federal law, policies that critics have branded onerous and unrealistic. In exchange, states have agreed to set new academic targets and establish new strategies for evaluating educators and turning around struggling schools, among other expectations.

From the Star-Ledger:

In seeking the waiver from 100 percent compliance, the state’s application proposes a new system for public school accountability that would group schools into three tiers based on students’ performance on standardized tests. The federal law deems any school not in compliance as failing, a penalty that could result in withheld funds after the 2014 deadline.

According to the state’s application, the 5 percent of schools with the lowest test scores would be deemed "priority." Another group with low graduation rates or wide achievement gaps would be considered "focus." The state’s best schools would be called "reward."

Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf said the proposed accountability system would support struggling schools and offer credit for progress toward the "flawed" federal law’s goal of having all students demonstrate proficiency in math and reading.

From The Record:

High-achieving schools in North Jersey have long bristled at being unfairly tarnished as “failing” even when only a fraction of students – often those with special needs – missed their testing goals. Now these schools, including ones in Fort Lee and Glen Rock, will be spared that stigma.

“This is a transformational moment in New Jersey,” said Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. “We have developed a new and considerably more effective and meaningful accountability system that preserves the best features of No Child Left Behind but corrects its deficiencies.”

From the Courier-Post:

Of the 70 lowest performing schools in the state that face interventions, 23 of them are in Camden. Interventions could include removing the principal, reviewing the staff or lengthening the school day.

Father Jeff Putthoff, founder and executive director of HopeWorks ‘N Camden, was cautiously optimistic that the waiver would do some good in Camden, the tri-county area’s neediest district. There, five district schools have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress for 11 consecutive years, and several charter schools also remain on the Schools In Need of Improvement list.

“What we had before wasn’t working here. This waiver is supposed to allow for more innovative and creative responses. If that will happen, I’ll be all for it,” Puthoff said.

From NJ Spotlight:

Still, all schools will be held to achievement targets for each group of students, similar to the AYP targets but now different for each school and each group depending on how far they have to go. Instead of the previous target under NCLB of all students reading and doing math at grade level by 2014, schools under the new rules will be compelled to meet varying targets each year -- now called “annual measurable objectives” (AMOs) -- that reduce the number of students not proficient by at least 50 percent by 2016.

Starting next year, the state also will provide a vastly different report card for every school, renamed the School Scorecard, that will publicly report this progress. The reports will directly compare schools’ test scores against their socio-economic peers, call them out where the achievement gaps are wide or narrow, and in general provide analysis along with the numbers. The state has yet to release this year’s final version of the 17-year-old School Report Card, a little later than usual due to a new computation of graduation rates, officials said.

From Press of Atlantic City:

“A lot of this was done behind closed doors,” said Stan Karp, of the Education Law Center, which has represented the state’s most disadvantaged students in the 31 urban Abbott districts. “There has been no real attention to the cost of these proposals, and the plans we do know about mean more testing for students and more intervention from Trenton. There is no flexibility from testing every child.”

He said the reforms proposed will put tremendous pressure on the most vulnerable schools at a time when the state seems to be moving away from providing funding for those schools and instead promoting more charter schools and vouchers.

“It’s a blank check to experiment on poor kids,” Karp said.

Friday Sanity Check

2012-02-10T09:47:00.001-05:00

From The Onion (so be forewarned):

WASHINGTON—A shocking report released by the U.S. Department of Education this week revealed that a growing number of the nation's educators struggle on a daily basis with some form of teaching disability.

The study, which surveyed 2,500 elementary and high school level instructors across the country, found that nearly one out of every five exhibited behaviors typically associated with a teaching impairment. Among them: trouble paying attention in school, lack of interest or motivation during class, and severe emotional issues.

"For teaching-disabled and at-risk educators, just coming to school every day is a challenge," said Dr. Robert Hughes, a behavioral psychologist and lead author of the study. "Even simple tasks, like remaining alert and engaged during lessons, can be a struggle. Unfortunately, unless we take immediate action, these under-performers will only continue to fall further behind."

Comm. Cerf Comes Out Swinging

2012-02-09T10:46:00.004-05:00

What to make of the timing of yesterday’s NJEA/Christie fisticuffs and today’s release of a memo from Ed. Comm. Cerf attacking NJEA’s leaders for sugar-coating NJ’s stark achievement gap between poor and rich kids, and between black kids and white kids? Are we shelving the good-cop bad-cop routine? Is the Administration drawing a line in the sand on the Opportunity Scholarship Act?

Back in December NJEA issued a press release that criticized the Christie administration’s "primary rationale for education reform – the so-called “achievement gap” between white and black students in the state’s urban districts." Barbara Keshishian, NJEA President called the rationale “a classic straw man," and said that our recent NAEP scores showed that our African-American kids did just fine because they out-performed other African-American kids."

The Christie Administration didn't respond, but apparently the fire's been a-burnin'; yesterday's contretemps with NJEA's Life's-Not-Fair-So-Sue-Me Vince Giordano may have been the last spark.

Comm. Cerf begins his memo with the accusation that NJEA is “not especially troubled with the significant achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers in New Jersey.” He continues,

The notion of an achievement gap may not be something that matters to the NJEA. But it matters to the nearly 40% of our students who can’t read at grade level in 3rd grade – an indicator closely tied to future success in school. It matters to the thousands of students that drop out of high school or even before high school each year.

And,

Because each of those children has a face and a name, it is astonishing that the most well-funded and vocal education group in the state would say that we should be content with any achievement gap at all. The complacency inherent in not wanting to call a system “shameful” in which a child’s zip code largely determines whether he or she will have a fair chance to be successful in life is the exact reason that this problem exists.

Then, Cerf gets at the heart of the argument that divides even the most ardent education reformers: is systemic change best achieved incrementally or in big leaps? Do you bring a system along through tiny steps and lots of hand-holding, or more boldly and rigorously? Is there a moral dimension when kids are at stake?

Here's the Commissioner's take:

Incremental progress might be fine inside the NJEA offices. But it is not good enough for the student that is assigned to a failing school without any choice available to them for a better option. The NJEA would be satisfied to tell that student not to worry about the achievement gap that has determined their destiny - it is just a “straw man” after all. But that student doesn’t care about the incremental progress we’ve made in the last two decades. Not when they are the one that is still left behind.

Quote of the Day

2012-02-09T10:33:00.001-05:00

The NJEA’s position, quite explicitly, is that our African American children are doing better than many other states’ African American children. I take great offense at this perspective. The NJEA believes the right question is whether poor children or children of color are performing better than children within the same demographic group elsewhere. I believe that the right question is whether we are giving every child an equal opportunity in education regardless of birth circumstances – that is, not in comparison to their demographic peers, but to all children.

Ed. Comm. Chris Cerf, in a memo released today.

Christie and the NJEA: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

2012-02-09T09:32:00.004-05:00

Just when the Governor and the leadership of NJEA appeared to be mending some fences over issues like tenure reform and the Urban Hope Act, a foot-in-mouth moment for NJEA Executive President Vince Giordano has spawned a volley of sharp-edged repartee. And just now Ed. Comm. Cerf has released a statement that attacks NJEA’s leaders for minimizing NJ’s intractable achievement gap between whites and minorities.

Where to begin? Let’s start with Mr. Giordano’s Romney moment on N.J. Capitol Report, a political talk show. Giordano was asked a question about the Opportunity Scholarship Act, a voucher program that would provide corporate-sponsored scholarships to poor kids in a few of our poorest cities. Commenting about how the poor can’t always attend private and charter schools, Giordano said, "Life’s not always fair and I’m sorry about that." (Star-Ledger)

Cringe. Extract foot from mouth. Gov. Christie, never one to not seize a moment, emoted,

"I cannot express how disgusted I am by that statement by the head of the largest teachers union in our state," he said at a press conference in Westfield, "but I also have to tell you I’m not the least bit surprised because I think it so succinctly captures what their real position is."

Then the governor took a personal swipe: "As Vince drives out of the palace on State Street in his big luxury car and his $500,000 salary. I’m sure life’s really fair for him, and if Vince’s kids were in a failing school district he could afford to send them to any school in New Jersey that could help them succeed."

So the Governor demanded that NJEA President Barbara Keshishian fire Giordano. (Not sure she has that authority, but whatever.) NJEA was outraged: said spokesman Steve Wollmer, “He’s been demonizing us for two-and-a-half years now. This is an insult of the highest order.” And anyway, says Wollmer, Giordano doesn’t really make $500K because that figure includes benefits and also $127K in formula-based pension liability and “he doesn’t get to spend any of that on groceries.”

Someone call Meals on Wheels.

Giordano wrote an email:

NJEA’s record of support for urban education and disadvantaged children is unimpeachable. For decades, we have supported better funding for urban schools to promote equal educational opportunity, and school improvement efforts like universal preschool and literacy programs…We oppose vouchers (the OSA program) and other privatization programs because they will take resources from disadvantaged public schools and only exacerbate the challenges faced by students in those communities.

Now, OSA is structured in such a way as to pose no threat to the public district. And NJEA has other reasons for opposition to OSA, including the fact that private and parochial schools can be staffed by non-unionized teachers.

So let's exorcise our inner drama queens for a moment because these histrionics actually point to an important issue, one that divides not only NJEA and Gov. Christie, but ed reformers as well. How does one measure the value of rescuing some small number of children from a bleak education system against the possible diminution of resources for the kids who remain stranded? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Or is that intrinsically unfair, given that wealthier parents never make that choice in NJ, because they can always move to a better district or send their kids to private school?

Quote of the Day

2012-02-08T10:20:00.002-05:00

Ed. Commissioner Chris Cerf on a bill that would subject all proposed charter schools to a public vote:

Cerf reiterated his longstanding opposition to allowing voters in a school district to decide whether or not to approve a charter school, even though a bill that would require just that passed an Assembly committee last week.

“I’ve never met the situation where monopolists, given the chance to vote for competition would do that, ever,” Cerf said. “The people who tend to be good at organizing people to vote would be against mucking around with the current system.”

Differing Views on November Elections

2012-02-08T09:42:00.000-05:00

Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald gloats about the success of the legislation he sponsored that allows school boards to bypass budget votes and move elections to November:

"This idea has been talked about for decades but was always killed by inertia or the special interests," said Greenwald (D-Camden). "By bringing all the stakeholders to the table and forging a compromise, we passed this major reform measure in a matter of weeks. Now, my solution is proving to be a quick and astounding success, with nearly 42 percent of the state's elected school boards already making the move to November school elections. This truly remarkable momentum benefits both taxpayers and democracy and shows we can get things done when we work together for sensible reform."

As of today 230 boards have passed resolutions moving elections to November, with benefits cited such as raising voter turnout (typically no more than 15% in April), saving money, and eliminating the major distraction of marketing budgets, as long as they come in below the 2% cap.

Not all boards are so sanguine. In Princeton, for example, the board voted unanimously to keep elections in April. Said board member Mia Cahill,

I understand that for financial and administrative reasons, it overwhelmingly makes sense to move to November, but I do feel afraid that the election of board members in the future will not be partisan so much, but that it will be political just by its nature by being in November. I fear this could be the first step in a downward spiral in making education more political than it already is.

$418K in School Board Background Checks

2012-02-07T10:56:00.002-05:00

After all the hoopla, only 17 NJ school board members are disqualified from service based on background checks, according to today's Star-Ledger.

Last July the Legislature passed a bill that required all 5,159 school board members to undergo criminal background checks. At one point the DOE announced that 186 members were disqualified, but that number dropped significantly after a little hounding.

It costs each district $81 in costs for each school board member to complete the process. That’s about $418K in total. Was it worth it? You decide.

The "Hypocrisy" of Public Votes on Same-Sex Marriage and Charter Schools

2012-02-07T10:38:00.006-05:00

Newsflash: Bob Braun, the columnist for the Star-Ledger, a staunch opponent of school choice, agrees with me. He just published a piece that castigates Gov. Christie for his bone-headed suggestion that NJ have a public vote on gay marriage. Braun labels it “hypocrisy” for the Governor to support a vote on a civil rights issue, a thinly-veiled political calculation based on the premise that because same-sex marriage affects a minority of voters, such a referendum won’t pass, while not supporting a controversial bill that would mandate votes on proposed charter schools.

The Governor's stance is certainly inconsistent (nice Emerson quote from Braun as a bonus). How can you support a vote on one civil rights issue – same-sex marriage – but oppose the same strategy for another civil rights issue, access to a functional school system?

(My earlier takes here and here.)

Braun then quotes Carlos Perez, head of New Jersey Charter Schools Association, who explained to the State Assembly why the law would doom all charters, gratuitously slaps Sen. Teresa Ruiz (who just released an updated version of her tenure reform bill), and then segues to a compromise bill floating around the Statehouse that would mandate public votes only on charter schools in suburbs. Urban charters, i.e., non-traditional public schools in poor neighborhoods – would get a bye from public approval.

Such a compromise would probably satisfy the loudest supporters of a public vote on charters; their constituencies are primarily in the suburbs. And there’s a refreshing lack of pretense in such a differentiation between our largely successful suburban schools and our largely unsuccessful poor urban ones.

On the other hand, such a compromise would carve into law, as Trenton School Board President Rev. Toby Sanders explains, a return to “separate but equal,” a reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education. Sanders: "It would treat communities where the residents are brown and black differently from communities where most residents are white. It would set back civil rights."

It’s also not clear how such a compromise bill would work. We already label our lowest-performing districts as “Abbotts,” so supposedly this bill would exempt these 31 districts from public votes on charter proposals. But what about non-Abbott districts that are also chronically underperforming?

One such category is the 16 “Bacon” districts – poor districts in South Jersey – which have joined in a lawsuit to challenge the NJ DOE for inadequate funding. (See here for details.) They’re the Abbotts of rural NJ. Are they also separated out from the rest of the state in matters of charter school votes?

What about districts that are neither Abbots nor Bacons, but are still poor and chronically failing? (Willingboro comes to mind.) Will they operate under separate rules?

The compromise bill offers more problems than solutions. And, in the end, Braun gets it right: civil rights issues, whether you’re talking same-sex marriage or access to a functional education system, don’t belong on ballots.

221 NJ School Boards Move Elections to November,

2012-02-07T09:28:00.002-05:00

and there's still a week and a half to go til the deadline resolution on Feb. 17th. This latest tally is courtesy of New Jersey School Boards Association.

ESEA Waiver Predictions

2012-02-06T15:47:00.001-05:00

This week the U.S. DOE will announce the recipients of waivers from No Child Left Behind/ESEA. If you recall, NJ is one of 11 states applying for waivers in this first round (here’s our application); waivers for ESEA’s stringent benchmarks will be purportedly granted for states that make promises to turn around chronically failing schools and beef up teacher evaluations.

Here, Mike Petrelli of Fordham prognosticates the results of the competition for flexibility:

How this is going to end: 4 predictions

So how will this go down?

1. The Department of Education will announce that most of the 11 states that applied were approved for flexibility. At first, this will lead to a Kumbaya moment.

2. Upon closer inspection, observers will notice that the amount of flexibility granted on accountability is tiny. Approved plans will amount to minor changes away from the AYP system we’ve got today.

3. The number of states planning to apply for waivers by February 21 will drop precipitously, as they realize that it's just not worth the effort.

4. All of this will embolden members of Congress to talk (again) about the urgency of fixing No Child Left Behind for real (though nothing will come of it this year).

Cami Anderson, Newark Superintendent, on LIFO

2012-02-06T09:06:00.002-05:00

("LIFO" means "last in, first out," i.e., when public school districts reduce staff due to declining enrollment they must lay off the teachers with the least seniority first, regardless of classroom effectiveness.)

Q [Star-Ledger]: Under current law, when you are faced with declining enrollment and want to reduce teaching staff, you must release the least senior teachers first. Why is that a problem?

A [Superintendent Cami Anderson]: You’re not able to base that decision on performance. You can’t keep the person based on who is the best fit for the school, and the best results for kids. You have to keep the teachers who are not the best fit.

Q. You’ve given principals the power to reject any teachers they don’t want. So what happens when poorly performing teachers can’t find a home?

A. Under current law, we have to keep that person on the payroll forever if they have tenure. Even if no principal wants them, even if enrollment is declining and there is no position for them, we have to keep them on the payroll.

Q. How much does that cost?

A. Right now, about $8.5 million a year for about 100 teachers in an excess teacher pool.

Q. So if the tenure rules were changed, you could lay off those poor performers and save $8.5 million?

A. Correct.

Q. As it stands, when students switch to charter schools, you can’t reduce staff in response — unless you want to get rid of talented young teachers, correct?

A. Correct, but they’re not all young. Some of the untenured teachers are midcareer.

Q. So on the whole, do charter schools create a financial burden for the district?

A. When students leave the Newark Public Schools, whether for charters, private schools or the suburbs, the money affiliated with that student goes with them. The challenge is that we have a certain amount of fixed costs, not just the facilities, but the people, because of the tenure rules we discussed.

Sunday Leftovers

2012-02-05T10:29:00.009-05:00

Don't miss the New Yorker profile of Tyler Clementi, his Rutgers' peers, and the sequence of events that led to suicide (and NJ's Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Legislation).

Here's Star-Ledger coverage of Friday night’s meeting in Newark where Superintendent Cami Anderson was shouted off the stage by “over a thousand teachers, crowd of more than 1,000 teachers, residents and community leaders who grew increasingly hostile as she tried to explain why she wants to close seven under-achieving schools." Also see this analysis from the Wall Street Journal, which posits that the conflicts stems from a history "where some parents, teachers and other stakeholders have grown resentful and suspicious of outsiders after more than 15 years under state control."

NJ Spotlight reports on the passage of a bill through the Assembly Education Committee that would subject all aspiring charter schools to a public referendum. (You know how I feel about this.) From Spotlight:

The big question remains whether the bill, the most controversial of a host of charter school bills first proposed in the Assembly and Senate last year, will ever pass both houses with margins large enough.

Gov. Christie opposes the bill and “State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) has previously said she is opposed to the local referendum, contending it would stop charters altogether.”

Also from Spotlight, a status report on Sen. Ruiz's tenure reform bill, including a few tweaks in language.

New Jersey Newsroom reports on a new bill that would raise NJ’s compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 18.

Newsflash: Camden Public Schools has been underreporting violence and vandalism.

The Courier-Post has a handy gadget where you can plug in your district and see results from the recently-released standardized assessments.

"Ten years in the courts and with some of its original plaintiffs long out of school, a federal lawsuit contending that Newark effectively cheated thousands of students of special education services has been settled -- with promises all around. " (NJ Spotlight)

Remember Superintendent Roy Seitz of Parsippany, whose devoted school board ignored newly-enacted salary caps of $177,500 and awarded their liege $220,565? After a long fight with the DOE and some undetermined amount of legal fees, the school board is now suing Seitz to make him pay back the money they never should have agreed to pay him in the first place. (Daily Record.)

I'll Be Off Tomorrow

2012-02-02T10:02:00.002-05:00

I'm attending an education writing workshop sponsored by Bellwether Education Partners.

Quote of the Day

2012-02-02T09:58:00.002-05:00

Today's NJ Spotlight on NJ's achievement gap between "low income kids and everyone else":

In elementary school language arts, for instance, the gap between low-income students and everyone else is close to 30 percentage points, up from 26 points seven years ago. Among third graders in the state's poorest districts, barely 40 percent passed the state's reading and writing test.

"The bottom line is the achievement gap is wide throughout the state," said Arcelio Aponte, the state board's president. "Although maybe trending up in some cases, it's still a 30 percent gap. How could anyone find that acceptable?"

Irony Alert in Bridgewater-Raritan

2012-02-02T09:51:00.005-05:00

As of this writing, 142 NJ school boards have passed resolutions to move their member elections from April to November because of a very delicious carrot: if annual school budgets come in below the 2% cap they can bypass a public vote. Expect the number of boards seizing this opportunity to grow as we approach the deadline of Feb. 17th: marketing budgets is time-consuming, and if the budget is voted down then municipal bodies, who often have no expertise in education, get to make cuts to satisfy voters.

However, there’s a particularly interesting conflict brewing at Bridgewater-Raritan Public Schools, a Somerset County district with 8,685 kids and a $130 million budget. The Board there is divided on making the move, and its NJEA affiliate, Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association, is lobbying the Board to make the move, threatening to actively campaign against board members who vote to keep elections in April.

From the BREA’s Facebook page:

On February 14, the BOE will debate and likely vote on whether or not to exercise their option to move the budget and BOE member vote to November. And as you know, if the budget is at or below the 2% statutory cap, it automatically passes. Right now the BR BOE is divided on the issue with a few undecided that will swing the vote one way or the other. The only argument that matters is that exercising this option is what is best for the kids. Ensuring that the budget will pass and not be subjected to further millions in cuts at the hands of the town councils has to be every board members preeminent concern; if not, they should be removed for caring more about their political survival than the students they have pledged to support. Please help spread the word to every member living in the district and your friends and family members who reside in the township or borough. Be there on the 14th and make your voice heard! And don't forget to wear red...after all it is Valentine's day!

To further complicate matters, the municipal councils of Bridgewater Township and Raritan Borough may preempt the Board’s decision by acting on their own, one of the options under the new bill. Dick Bergeron, a blogger who is also a former Board member there, describes the state of affairs:

Looks like this entire matter has already become a done deal, even before the voters of Bridgewater and Raritan have had a chance to become acquainted with and to understand the nature and long term implications of this new law.
It amazes me to observe how quickly and how easily it has become to disfranchise all citizens of our two municipalities by stripping them of their voting privilege on the school budget.

But it surprises me somewhat that the BREA has gone public with its political targeting of School Board members who will not toe the line. Typically, this organization likes to stay below the radar and to exert its influence in other ways.

Also a factor in the dust-up between BREA and the Board: they’re currently in contract negotiations, which don’t seem to be going particularly well.

One of the arguments against November elections is the oft-expressed fear that such a move will “politicize” school board elections. In Bridgewater-Raritan, the irony is that even the discussion of such a move has provoked the kind of politicking and lobbying that the more dubious members of the board hoped to avoid.

First Look at NJ's 2011 School Report Cards

2012-02-01T10:48:00.007-05:00

NJ’s School Report Cards, the state data base for student achievement based on standardized tests, is still under embargo. But here’s a few data points. (I’ll provide links once the embargo is lifted.)

Let’s look at 11th graders, who are tested in language arts and math with the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). Across the state, 49.9% of kids received a score good enough to be marked “proficient” and 25.3% scored “advanced proficient.” In language arts the scores were better: 68.8% of all students tested achieved proficiency and 20.8% were rated “advanced proficient.”

The HSPA is usually regarded as an 8th-grade level test, but those are good scores, higher than last year’s.

The Report Cards are also, of course, broken down demographically. This is from the Executive Summary.

“Partially Proficient” means the student didn’t make the cut-off for proficiency. Of the students who attempted the Mathematics section, the percentage of Partially Proficient students ranged from 51.3% for Black or African American students to 8.3% for Asian students. In Language Arts Literacy, the span was much narrower, ranging from 23.7% of Other students scoring Partially Proficient to 5.2% for Asian students.

In Mathematics, 8.1% of Economically Disadvantaged students scored Advanced Proficientand 48.2% scored Proficient compared to 31.0% and 50.5% of Non-Economically Disadvantaged students scoring Advanced Proficient and Proficient, respectively. In Language Arts Literacy, 6.1% of Economically Disadvantaged students scored Advanced Proficient and 72.6% scored Proficient compared to 25.7% and 67.5% of Non-Economically Disadvantaged students scoring Advanced Proficient and Proficient, respectively.

Nothing new, right? Poor kids show significantly lower test scores than wealthier kids, and we have a very wide achievement gap – 43 points – between black kids and Asian kids in math. But how about if we look at educationally-disadvantaged kids, who historically score lower than wealthier kids? Even more to the point, what if we look at poor kids who get to attend schools in wealthy districts due to vagaries of zip codes or family circumstances compared with poor kids who attend school in districts where almost everyone is impoverished?

School districts in NJ are rated on socio-economics by DFG’s or District Factor Groups. The wealthiest designation is “J” and the poorest is “A.”

According to the DOE, 23% of educationally-disadvantaged kids who are assigned to a school district with a DFG of J – the wealthiest ranking – fail to meet proficiency in math. 11.1% of poor kids in J districts fail to meet proficiency in language arts. In other words, 77% of poor kids in rich districts pass the math portion of the HSPA and almost 89% pass the language arts portion.

But in districts labeled “A,” 53.4% of educationally-disadvantaged kids failed to meet proficiency standards in math and 30.7% failed to meet proficiency goals in language arts. So in poor districts only 46.6% of kids pass the math HSPA and 69.3% pass language arts.

That's a gap of 30 points in math achievement between poor kids who attend school in J and A districts and a gap of 20 points in language arts.

There are many complex factors involved when educating poor children. But NJ’s most recent HSPA scores seem to make the case that poor kids suffer scholastically when they are segregated into large, urban districts.

Update: Here's the link to the 2011 test results and the accompanying press release.

Criticisms Re: NJ's Anti-Bullying Legislation

2012-02-01T09:42:00.002-05:00

Both The Record and the Star-Ledger have editorials out urging the State to keep the anti-bullying law even though the NJ’s Council on Local Mandates ruled that the new legislation amounts to an unconstitutional unfunded mandate.

The Editorial Boards of both papers praise NJ’s far-reaching law as an honorable attempt to protect kids who suffer bullying by peers. That’s true. And both editorials assume that the costs incurred by local districts are largely teacher and staff training (including everyone from custodians to school board members). That’s part of the cost, although the greatest expense to districts is probably the diversion of time spent filing reports, mounting investigations, and complying with rigid time schedules.

New Jersey School Boards Association has commented on the law’s impact on districts. So has the NJ Principals and Supervisors Association, which conducted a survey of its members. Some of the conclusions:

The legislation is a hefty time commitment (e.g. paperwork) for staff assigned to lead, or are involved with, investigations, taking them away from their existing duties;

Where districts have assigned guidance counselors or school psychologists to the role of the Anti-Bullying Specialist (ABS), the role of counselor or advocate is in direct conflict with their new investigatory responsibilities assigned under the new law. Such respondents also voiced concern about their lack of investigatory experience;

Teachers have experienced significant stress due to the strictures of the reporting requirements of the new law. Many are fearful that not reporting will lead to liability, even where they do not believe an incident rises to the level of HIB. They often report incidents that would have been traditionally handled in the classroom for fear of reprisal if they do not;

Students have lost valuable instructional time due to the substantial investigatory requirements of the law;

Students and parents have been hyper-sensitized to the topic, sometimes labeling normal adolescent conflict as HIB;

The written report follow-up requirement to parents often reanimates conflict that had been resolved.

129 NJ School Boards Move to November Elections

2012-01-31T10:55:00.004-05:00

That's the latest tally from New Jersey School Boards Association, about 25% of all school boards. The deadline for passing a resolution is Feb. 17th, lots of time yet. Apparently the carrot of bypassing budget votes overwhelms the stick of board elections in November.

Harassment, Intimidation, Bullying Law Update

2012-01-31T10:37:00.001-05:00

On Friday NJ’s Council on Local Mandates ruled that our new Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying legislation is, at least in part, an unfunded mandate. Under New Jersey law those sections which require district expenditures are nullified.

NJ Spotlight cites bill sponsor Valerie Huttle, who said that she wants to find funding for the bill rather than rewrite it. The original bill’s language mandated that school districts spend no money implementing the legislation, an impossible feat given the need for school-wide training, additional staff time, paperwork, etc. Allamuchy Township, which brought suit against the State, estimated its costs at $20,000. According to Spotlight, “extrapolating Allamuchy's staffing costs comes to $10 million to $15 million, but a staff analysis by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services a year ago said it could not put a price tag on the law, since each district would handle the responsibilities differently.”

Stay tuned.

Speaking of New Jersey civil rights history,

2012-01-31T10:22:00.001-05:00

the Press of Atlantic City examines the segregation of poor minority students into Abbott districts and finds that “[w]hile racial segregation was banned more than a half-century ago, many local schools are still segregated across socioeconomic lines, and those lines often mirror the old racial ones.”

Explains Education Law Center David Sciarra,

A small number of school districts serve very high concentrations of poor students and students of color. By and large, that describes the New Jersey public school system in 1970, and that’s the system we have today.

At Atlantic City High School, according to the Press, less than 8% of kids are white. Eleven miles away in Linwood (Mainland Regional High School) 78% are white.

"Direct Democracy Could Sometimes Crush the Interests of a Minority in Society"

2012-01-31T09:24:00.004-05:00

What’s wrong with a public referendum for a charter school? It’s “democratic,” right? Why not subject each aspiring charter to a public vote, as proposed in Assembly Bill 1877?

From today’s New York Times (regarding a Federal lawsuit in Colorado):

One professor of constitutional law, Wilson R. Huhn at the University of Akron School of Law in Ohio, said that recent scholarly research supported the Madisonian notion that direct democracy could sometimes crush the interests of a minority in society — in votes, for example, to ban same-sex marriage.

Sometimes it takes leadership from legislators, which is why Gov. Christie’s suggestion that NJ hold a public referendum on same-sex marriage has elicited scorn from civil rights heroes like John Lewis. Here’s Representative Lewis’s remarks:

"Apparently the governor of the state has not read his recent history books. We would never have won (civil rights for African-Americans with a referendum). The actions of Congress and executive orders brought down those signs that said 'colored only' and 'whites only. If two women or two men want to get married, that is a question of human dignity and of human rights," Lewis said. "The day will come when people look back at this and say 'we were just silly.'"

Congressman Rush Holt added, "For the governor to say a referendum should replace courage - that shows he doesn't understand history.”

For the sponsors of A 1877 to advocate public approval for a new charter shows that they don't understand history.

Is SOS-NJ Consulting for Gov, Christie:?

2012-01-30T09:11:00.009-05:00

When I wrote in my Spotlight editorial on Friday that the existence of charter schools provokes a disproportional response from charter detractors, I was right. 52 comments now append the piece, a NJ Spotlight record! (Hmmm…perhaps I should get paid by the comment.)

One additional thought. A majority of the commenters seems to share the belief that the State Legislature shouldn't have the right to pass laws that delegate the charter school authorization process to some combination of the DOE and other authorizing agencies. Instead, any aspiring charter school should be subjected to a community-wide referendum.

Stay with me here. This past Tuesday Gov. Christie responded to a move by the NJ State Legislature to consider a bill allowing same-sex marriage with this bon mot: “The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South," Christie said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Civil rights on the ballot? Now there’s a lame-brained idea. Reaction was fierce.

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver: “Governor, people were fighting and dying in the streets of the South because the majority refused to grant minorities equal rights by any method. It took legislative action to bring justice to all Americans, just as legislative action is the right way to bring marriage equality to all New Jerseyans.”

Newark Mayor Cory Booker: “Dear God, we should not be putting civil rights issues to a popular vote, to be subject to the sentiments, the passions of the day. No minority should have their rights subject to the passions and the sentiments of the majority. This is the fundamental bedrock of what our nation stands for.” Booker added that Jackie Robinson would never have broken baseball’s color barrier if the matter had been put to a vote. (Great video here.)

Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality: “There would be no civil rights in this country — certainly nowhere near what we have — if it were determined by referendum.” Goldstein added, “a public vote on the issue would not really reflect the will of the people. A referendum reflects which side can corrupt the political system with more money.”

Let’s unpack this. Gov. Christie wants to quash any possibility that NJ would grant civil rights to the gay community. His best avenue towards such a result is to call for a public referendum. He gets to genuflect towards democracy (what’s more democratic than a vote?) while secure in the knowledge that such a referendum wouldn’t pass because it affects a minority of the community.

Great strategy, although everyone seems to be on to him. Maybe he owe SOS-NJ a consulting fee. After all, it’s the same tactic: cloak oneself with the flag and bypass the State Legislature's authority to protect the (educational/civil) rights of a minority community.

Sunday Leftovers

2012-01-29T10:36:00.004-05:00

Allamuchy Township Public Schools filed a complaint with the state Council on Local Mandates regarding the new Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying legislation, arguing that it’s an unfunded mandate. (Duh.) The Council just ruled that Allamuchy is right, and that the State Legislature blew it when it approved the law and provided no funds to meet the necessary professional development and increased staffing. (Star-Ledger; press release from Assembly Democrats here.)

Either the legislation will need to be recrafted to streamline the plethora of paperwork and manpower necessary for compliance or the State will need to fund it. Stay tuned.

From the Wall Street Journal: unlike more affluent districts, "New Jersey's poorest school districts were hit hard by the recession and changes in state funding, a one-two punch that led to steep cuts that reached into the classroom, according to a study by Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists."

Check our NJ Future for a discussion of a proposal in Hunterdon County to regionalize its 30 school districts. More here from Star-Ledger.

Some highly-paid NJ school superintendents, now faced with State-issued salary caps, are moving to greener pastures in New York. (NJ Spotlight)

The Courier-Post examines NJ's recent grade on the way we train, evaluate, and award tenure public school teachers (a D-) from the National Center on Teacher Quality.

There's a new advocacy group, Lakewood Unite, with a mission to “monitor inequities and irregularities in the Lakewood School District’s budgeting and procurement process” and “to address the inequities in the Lakewood School District Special Education Program.” (Some back story here.)

The deadline for NJ school boards to move elections to November (and bypass the budget vote on budgets below the 2% cap) is Feb. 17th.

As of Today,

2012-01-27T12:37:00.004-05:00

over 15% of NJ school boards have moved their members' elections to November, choosing to bypass the April budget vote while staying below the 2% mandated cap. NJSBA is keeping count; the tally is currently 91 of our 591 school boards. Deadline is Feb. 17th.

Check out...

2012-01-27T09:33:00.002-05:00

my new piece at NJ Spotlight, "The Charter School Controversy: Much Ado about Nothing." I'll respond to comments shortly.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-26T10:06:00.001-05:00

From Pres. Obama's State of the Union address:

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies – just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

Should NJ Keep Kids in School Til Age 18?

2012-01-26T09:36:00.007-05:00

During President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, he dropped in a proposal that students should not be permitted to leave high school until they either turn 18 or get a high school diploma.

Dana Goldstein, an highly-regarded education reporter, writes in Slate that while Pres. Obama’s proposal was puzzling – he has no power to enforce such a change because that’s a states’ rights thing – his suggestion could “act as an agenda-setter.” There’s much research out there that sticking it out through 12th grade can double a worker’s maximum annual wage, but currently 30 states allow children to drop out at earlier. In NJ, it’s age 16.

According to The Record, a piece of legislation that would move the drop-out age to 18 (sponsored by Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman) has been stalled in the Statehouse for years. NJ’s graduation rates vary wildly. In high-performing suburban districts it often approaches 100%. In poor urban areas it’s far lower. For example, Camden High reported a 2010 graduation rate of 42.1%. It's widely recognized that self-reported school graduation rates are inflated and a new process installed this year will result in lower rates.

From The Record:

In 2010, the state reported a 95 percent graduation rate and 9,283 dropouts, but officials acknowledged there might have been thousands more. Students who stopped showing up were often claimed as transfers, for example, when they had actually quit school.

The available data on graduation rates is notoriously inaccurate, and the state promises to release more precise data within months.

Groundswell of Approval for Moving School Board Elections to November

2012-01-26T09:06:00.005-05:00

Yesterday there were 38 New Jersey school boards that had voted to move their elections to November. Today, just a week after passage of the new legislation, there are 56. Odds are the numbers will continue to increase as boards hold regular business meetings, debate the pros and cons, and pass the required resolution. (Coverage from NJ Spotlight and Trenton Times; here’s a FAQ sheet from the DOE, which includes a sample resolution.)

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, who sponsored the bill, said, “When we spend in the state of New Jersey anywhere from $7 to $9 million a year on school board elections, with voter turnout across the state at approximately 15 percent, I think we’re doing a disservice to the residents.”

According to the FAQ sheet from the DOE, boards interested in bypassing budget votes (as along as the budget is within the 2% cap) and moving school board member elections to November should pass the resolution by Feb. 17th. Municipalities have the same deadline, although there are no reports of any taking this action.

Elections in November are non-partisan, although it’s anyone’s guess how that will work out. Much depends on the culture of one’s particular town. Petitions for candidates would have a new deadline of the date of the June primary election. Current members would have their terms extended for eight months, until reorganization in January. Finally,

Unlike an April election, the school board will not incur base costs for the payment of board workers, voting machine transportation, overtime for county election personnel, rental of polling places, or other inherent costs of an election. These costs are already covered by either the state or the county as part of theexisting November general election.

School Boards Move Towards November Option

2012-01-25T12:32:00.002-05:00

From NJ School Boards Association:

As of Tuesday morning, at least 38 school boards had already adopted resolutions to move the date of school board member elections to November 2012 and eliminate the annual vote on proposed school budgets that are at or below the state’s tax levy cap. A large number of school boards are expected to discuss the change in date during upcoming meetings.

NJ's Special Ed Classification Rate and Funding Issues

2012-01-25T10:11:00.003-05:00

Another new analysis, this one based on a report from the U.S. DOE, unpacks discrepancies among states regarding the percentage of children classified as eligible for special education services. The winner (or loser, I suppose) is Rhode Island, which classifies 18.4% of its kids. New Jersey is 5th, with a classification rate of 17.1%. In between are Massachusetts (18%), New York (17.3%), and Maine (17.3%). The states with the lowest classification rates are Texas (8.9%), Idaho (9.5%), Colorado (10.3%), Georgia (10.3%), and Nevada (10.3%).

This report considers the impact of funding models on classification rates, noting that “many states give districts additional money for each special education student or service they provide, which some lawmakers and researchers think encourages over-identification.”

Since the passage of the School Funding Reform Act, New Jersey has used a census-based model. (Earlier coverage here.) Instead of doling out special education aid based on individual need, regardless of district of residence, we now calculate state aid for kids with disabilities based on a percentage above cost-per-pupil. The theory of the census-based model is that we’ll control our special ed costs by discouraging over-classification.

Seven other states use this model. Four of the seven, according to this report, have special ed percentages below the national average. But the three others – Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – “have among the top six rates in the country.”

There’s other reasons why the census-based model isn’t working for us. Kids who grow up in high-poverty homes tend to have higher rates of disability (although that’s a can of worms) and our vibrant industry of private special education schools may create clusters of children with high-cost disabilities like autism.

Back in November the NJ DOE released a report from an independent consulting firm, Augenblick Palaich and Associates, that tried to assess the effectiveness of our census-based model for funding special education services. The report concluded that our system was “fundamentally flawed” and we’d be better off basing funding on actual need. This new analysis confirms those conclusions.

NCTQ Gives NJ a "B-" for our Teacher Policies

2012-01-25T09:39:00.002-05:00

The National Council on Teacher Quality has just released its state-by-state reports. The reports assess state teacher policies on “teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions.”(Long version here; snapshot here.)

So how’d we do? Better than last year, Our overall grade was a B- and last year it was a C. Still, we’ve got a long way to go.

First, the good news. We score well on the rigor of our state academic standards and our “home school regulation burden.” We’re doing pretty well with expanding the teacher pool through alternative routes, although we could improve our standing by accepting part-timers with content knowledge and allowing licensure reciprocity among certified teachers from other states. We are the best state in the country for preparing science teachers. We do well with special education teachers as well. We evaluate teachers annually, as appropriate.

But NCTQ was highly critical of a number of our policies. For example, one of the areas assessed is whether we only admit candidates to undergraduate teacher preparation programs with good academic records. We got a “D” in that area because, like 31 other states in the country, we set a very low bar. From the report:

New Jersey does not require aspiring teachers to pass a test of academic proficiency as a criterion for admission to teacher preparation programs, instead delaying its basic skills assessment until teacher candidates are ready to apply for licensure.

We flatlined specifically on preparing elementary teachers, especially our practice of using the Praxis test to assess content knowledge:

Although New Jersey has adopted the Common Core Standards, the state does not ensure that its elementary teacher candidates are adequately prepared to teach the rigorous content associated with these standards. New Jersey requires candidates to pass the Praxis II general elementary content test, which does not report teacher performance in each subject area, meaning that it is possible to pass the test and still fail some subject areas, especially given the state’s low passing score. Further, based on available information on the Praxis II, there is no reason to expect that the current version would be well aligned with the Common Core Standards.

We don’t require elementary reading and math teachers to demonstrate proficiency in their subject matter, although we fare better with middle school and high school teachers. We also don’t require “that objective evidence of student learning be the preponderant criterion of its teacher evaluations,” although the report notes that Gov. Christie has proposed legislation that would meet that goal.

Most critically, NCTQ takes us to task for our tenure policies. We do not “connect tenure decisions to evidence of teacher effectiveness” and “teachers in NJ are awarded tenure automatically after a three-year probationary period, absent an additional process that evaluates cumulative evidence of teacher effectiveness.”

After each analysis in this report the individual states are given space to rebut or affirm conclusions. In this section, however, “New Jersey recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis."

Quote of the Day

2012-01-24T10:44:00.002-05:00

[I]t really looks to me like there’s a sharp discontinuity between two groups of teachers here. Physical and special education instructors, as well as elementary school teachers, are less intelligent than the average college graduate. The other fields far less so, and in their domain of specialization they seem to be superior to the average college graduate.

That's Razib Khan, who blogs about genetics at Discover Magazine. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) Khan crunches more data on the intellectual aptitude among teachers, comparing SAT scores and Praxis test scores, which are used to get teaching certification.

Republican Hopefuls Mention the "E" Word

2012-01-24T09:35:00.003-05:00

Newsflash: at last night’s Republican Debate in Florida (#18, but who’s counting) there was actually a mention of public education. I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s been astounded by the lack of attention paid to America’s schools, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and all that stuff. Maybe they’re just too busy up there decrying Obama/Romneycare, Bain Capital, Newt’s pals at Freddie Mac, the gold standard, and military action at the Strait of Hormuz.

Anyway, Mitt Romney, who seems to turn a whiter shade of pale at each subsequent debate, was answering a question about the Dream Act, which would give the illegal immigrants the right to stay here as long as they join the army or go to college. Or maybe he was answering a question about whether English should be our “official” language and, if so, whether Americans who spoke a different language would get to have their ballots translated into their native tongue so they could, like, vote and stuff.

Anyway, he started talking about a revolutionary program in Massachusetts when he was governor there. Seems that immigrant schoolchildren were enrolled in an English-immersion program for a couple of years and then – voila! – they learned English and transitioned into regular classes. Plus, Romney said, Massachusetts has the best schools in the country.

It’s kind of true. Massachusetts does have great schools, although its achievement gap between poor and rich kids is as big as Jersey’s. But, unlike Jersey, Massachusetts was one of the first winners in Pres. Obama’s Race to the Top competition, reaping $250 million.

That immersion thing? Everyone does that. Romney taking credit for it is like Al Gore taking credit for inventing the Internets. Still, it was nice to hear the “e” word come from a Republican contender, even if his next comments involved something called “self-deportation,” which will no doubt play well with Florida’s Hispanic population.

Christie's Nominees and the Future of NJ's School Funding Formula

2012-01-24T08:47:00.003-05:00

The big NJ education news today is that Gov. Christie nominated two justices for the State Supreme Court, Phillip Kwon and Bruce Harris, to replace Virginia Long and John Wallace. (See NJ Spotlight and ABC News for more detail.) His nominees, if confirmed, would certain add some diversity to the bench. (Right now all the justices are white; Kwon was born in Korea and Harris is black and openly gay).

But the real question is how the new justices would rule when Gov. Christie, as expected, mounts a challenge to the School Funding Reform Act.

Historically, the State Supreme Court has been proactive supporters of NJ’s solution to our segregated and inequitable education system: compensate for the disparity in opportunity between, say, Cherry Hill and Camden by funneling money to our poorest school districts. Depending upon whom you ask, the Abbott solution (named for the first plaintiff, Raymond Abbott, in the original suit filed by Education Law Center) has been either a progressive work in progress or an abject failure.

The original decision was adjudicated in the 1980’s and the Court’s ruling came down in 1991. By that time, Ray Abbott, a poor student in Camden, was in jail for stealing cars and TV’s. He also had a nasty drug habit. In 1990 the New York Times interviewed Abbott and his mom:

''I don't like to play the 'what if' game,'' Mrs. Cherry said. ''I don't blame the Camden schools for the situation my son is in now. He probably would be in the same kind of trouble if he went to the richest school in the world.'' Mr. Abbott, in an interview at the Camden County Jail, said, ''The schools were not responsible. Maybe if they had a better program, I might have gotten more involved and stayed out of trouble. But it was my responsibility, and not the schools', who I hung out with.''

No word on the whereabouts of Mr. Abbott now.

Sunday Leftovers

2012-01-22T08:33:00.003-05:00

Charter School Update: The Courier-Post details the three new charter schools approved for Camden: City Invincible (K-8, 600 kids), Hope Community (K-4, 300 kids), and the Charter School for Global Leadership (9-12, 600 kids).

The Asbury Park Press Editorial Board challenges Gov. Christie to prove that charters are better than traditional public schools:

But what seems to be the central thesis of Christie’s call for reform — that charter schools are better than regular public schools and that good teachers can overcome all obstacles — deserves to be fully debated.

So far, that discussion has not been nearly as rigorous as it deserves to be. The state has been unable, or unwilling, to document how New Jersey’s existing charter schools, some of which have been in operation for well over a decade, have fared relative to other public schools. It is essential the state compile, analyze and share that information with the public and indicate what has worked well in the charter schools, and what hasn’t as more charter schools open each yea

The Press of Atlantic City notes that while Compass Academy Charter School was approved (which will serve Vineland and Millville), four other applications in the area were rejected.

And here's the Star-Ledger's round-up of the eight new charter application approvals.

The Herald News Editorial Board suggests that NJ school boards "give November elections a chance." So far 17 towns are taking that advice, according to the Trenton Times, which quotes Frank Belluscio of NJ School Boards Association: "There is far greater interest in the election change than anticipated, and we expect additional boards to take action (this) week."

Earlier this week Gordon MacInnes suggested in NJ Spotlight that the Urban Hope Act was a conspiracy to bolster patients to Cooper Hospital. (Here's my take.)However, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (who represents Trenton, one of the three targeted cities) begs to differ: she says in a press release that the Urban Hope Act “was a Democratic bill built not through confrontation, but through consensus with educational experts such as our teachers.. This was, overall, the right approach, and one that I support for the benefit of Trenton’s children.”

John Mooney at NJ Spotlight reviews the six education proposals contained in Gov. Christie's State of the State speech this week, including tenure reform. The Governor also underlined the concession he's made to charter opponents, specifically in high-performing suburban school districts, "pledging to focus on our failing school districts."

Education Law Center has sent a letter to Sen. Teresa Ruiz, Chair of the Senate Education Committee, and Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, head of the Assembly Ed Committee, demanding an investigation "into the Christie Administration's refusal to address hundreds of emergency health and safety repairs in urban school buildings across the state."

Lakewood Update: From the minutes of a recent Lakewood School Board meeting:

“I’m Aasind Johnson, I am Senior Class President at the high school. It’s common knowledge, that the money that our public Board of Education has seems to go to the private schools. And I have nothing against the private schools, I have nothing against the Jewish Community. I believe in equality for all people.”

Board President Mr. Meir Grunhut – “I hope you have that documented. Don’t get up and start throwing accusations. There’s a budget exact to the penny. How much money goes to public school; how much money goes to non-public schools.You’re here to give a report, and not here to give your opinions.”

Arne Duncan has $550 million in new Race to the Top money and he wants to use it to reward individual districts for implementing education reform principles, like data-driven teacher evaluations, tenure reform, and turning around failing schools. (Politics K-12)

NJ DOE Approves 8 New Charter Schools

2012-01-20T17:30:00.002-05:00

The NJ Department of Education just announced that it has approved eight new charter applications. There were 42 applications in this round. The ones that made the final cut are Charter School for Global Leadership, Hope Community Charter, and City Invincible Charter School in Camden; COMPASS Academy Charter School in Millville, Pittsgrove, and Vineland; Jersey City Global Charter in Jersey City; Newark Prep Charter School and Paulo Freire Charter School in Newark; and Trenton Prep Charter School in Trenton. Here's the press release with all the details, including the names of external reviewers.

Finally, Chris Cerf Gets an Unequivocable Title

2012-01-20T11:11:00.007-05:00

Almost exactly one year ago -- Jan. 18th, 2011 -- Christopher Cerf was sworn in as NJ's Acting Commissioner of Education after his nomination by Gov. Christie. And for the full year his confirmation has been blocked by State Sen. Ron Rice (D-Essex) through an archaic practice known as "senatorial courtesy," which means that the representative of the nominee's place of residence gets to whimsically nix confirmation. This titular purgatory has no impact on the nominee's ability to perform duties of office. Still, it's annoying.

Solution: Chris Cerf has moved from Essex County to Somerset County. The senator there is Christopher Bateman, who says, according to the Star-Ledger, that he expects to sign off on the appointment today. Welcome to New Jersey, Education Commissioner Cerf.

Intradistrict Comparability, Teacher Salaries Included (or not)

2012-01-20T10:22:00.007-05:00

The U.S. Department of Education has just published a report on an issue that permeates discussions of school equity: comparability of state and local expenditures among schools within districts. When educators talk about "school comparability" they usually mean how much different schools within a district spend per student, but with one large variable left out: teacher salaries. Here’s Stephen Sawchuk’s excellent discussion of this missing piece of the pie:

Under the current comparability calculation, districts are allowed to exempt teacher salary differentials. The problem is, however, that factors like high turnover in high-poverty schools result in a concentration of novice teachers in such schools—and therefore, less per-pupil funding overall. The resulting disparities can be quite large in dollar terms.

Dr. Bruce Baker is cited in the Sawchuk piece as explaining that teacher salary comparability is “a very small piece of a much larger equity puzzle.” Certainly, that's true for NJ. After all, our public school structure -- lots of tiny wealthier districts, poor kids mostly segregated in large cities -- renders intradistrict comparability numbers less meaningful. More relevant for us is inter-district analysis -- differences in cost per pupil with a specific focus on teacher salaries. It's widely accepted that wealthier districts attract more experienced (and expensive) teachers. That's why the NJ DOE is trying to push some salary differential so that poor kids get a share of seasoned veterans or/and effective teachers.

Still, the comparability question is interesting to look at, and that’s the focus of the U.S. DOE’s report.

The Feds compiled their data through the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). In order to receive ARRA funds, each school district was required to “report a school-by-school listing of per-pupil education expenditures from state and local funds for the 2008-2009 school year to its state education agency and required states to report these data to the U.S. Department of Education.”

All states complied and were included in the analysis. Except, it turns out, New Jersey.

From the report:

One state (New Jersey) reported expenditure data that included expenditures from federal funds and therefore could not be included in the analyses presented in this report… The data reporting instructions developed to implement this ARRA requirement offered flexibility in defining the expenditures to be reported, in recognition of the challenges for districts and states in compiling these data retroactively. New Jersey interpreted this flexibility as permitting the state to include federal funds in its school expenditure reports. All other states reported that they excluded federal funds from the reported data.

In other words, the Feds instructed state to calculate comparability among districts by omitting money from Federal funds, specifically Title I money, which supplements funding for poor children. But NJ, unlike the other 49 states, included federal money.

The report notes that an additional project on comparability, the Civil Rights Data Collections, will include 7,000 districts across the county and 260 NJ districts. “The Department is following up with New Jersey districts to ensure that their CRDC reporting includes only those expenditures that were made from state and local funds." I.e., we'll follow the rules this time.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-18T17:07:00.003-05:00

Megan McArdle ponders income mobility, specifically that middle-class and upper-class people brook no challenge to their children's current economic strata. The result is that we think of mobility as only going in one direction -- up -- so higher-income parents "pay lip service to mobility, but they work damn hard to make sure that their kids don't get exposed to a peer group that might normalize dropping out and working low-wage, dead end jobs, or going on welfare." She continues,

No matter how deeply ideologically committed you are to public education and income mobility, you will not leave your kid in a high-poverty school where gangs are valorized and college is not--or even in a working class school that will close off the chances for admission to Harvard. You'll agitate against zoning that would bring poor people in (though of course, not because of the poor people, it's just that, you know, the character of the town is quiet single family houses and the infrastructure won't support multi-family plus we don't really have the social services here and they'd be much better off in Camden, actually.) With other like-minded parents, you'll take over the school and reshape its priorities to match those of the upper-middle class. Or you'll move to a different school system, naturally talking about the enrichment programs rather than the more affluent, education-focused peer group you're buying for your kids.

The one thing you will not say--unless you are isolated in a rural area with exactly one school and no critical mass of similar parents--is, "Oh, well, I guess the best we can hope for is a third-tier state school." It is no accident that the middle class bits of the New York City school system have managed to hijack the best resources for themselves, in the process building a pretty good public school system which exists cheek-by-jowl with a very lousy one.