Blue Jersey's Ed Reform 101
Part 2 - Teacher Quality Myths
Everyone knows that teachers are important (even if politicians like Chris Christie don't always show it.). Everyone knows there are great teachers and bad teachers. Everyone knows that a teacher can change a child's life.
But some corporate "reformers" take this notion about the importance of the teacher way too far. They claim the teacher is the most important factor in determining students' success, ignoring the role privilege, poverty, and parents play in a child's life. And they foolishly believe figuring out who teaches well is a simple matter of test scores: it isn't.
One of the consequences of Christie's war on the NJEA is a false view of teachers and the processes used to evaluate them. If we are ever going to have a serious conversation about education in New Jersey, we need to get past the myths he perpetuates about teachers.
What you should know about teacher quality:
Teachers are important, but they are NOT the most important factor in student learning.
Using test scores to evaluate teachers is extremely error-prone.
Because of these errors, test scores should not be used to make decisions about hiring and paying teachers; even basing part of the decision on test scores is disastrous.
The "three good teachers in a row" myth is exactly that: a myth.
Far more than 17 teachers have left their New Jersey schools in the last decade due to incompetence.
Blue Jersey's Ed Reform 101
Part 1 - Standardized Testing Myths
In the world of the corporate reformer, standardized testing drives everything.
Judging teachers, principals, schools, and students; merit pay, tenure, and layoffs; allocating money; granting charters... it all starts with standardized testing. And it's an article of faith among the corporate "reform" set that standardized tests are fair, accurate, inexpensive, and good for students.
The people who actually study this issue and work with children, however, know that nothing could be further from the truth.
There is a place for standardized testing in New Jersey, but it is inappropriate to use standardized tests in high-stakes decisions that affect teachers and students. We can't measure a child's learning or a teacher's effectiveness when we put so much emphasis on secretive tests that are flawed in their construction, administration, and grading.
Yet almost every proposal put forward by the corporate reformers relies heavily on children filling in bubbles on a sheet of paper. So let's start this series by taking apart the myths about standardized testing.
What you should know about standardized testing:
Standardized tests are typically imprecise, unreliable, and biased against the poor and minorities.
Too much emphasis on testing makes teachers focus only on what's tested and encourages cheating.
Standardized tests are expensive, but they are graded by low-skilled, low-paid workers.
Student test scores are a poor way to evaluate teachers.
All this week, teachers are setting up classrooms, parents are buying school supplies, and children are getting in their last cannonballs at the pool. The first day of school is coming to New Jersey; for many of us, it's truly the traditional start of the new year.
But things won't be the same when the school doors open this year. New Jersey's education system - in many ways, the envy of the nation - has come under severe assault. Budgets slashed, unions attacked, school leaders demonized... even the teachers themselves are under fire. Parents are growing concerned about their children's future; citizens are wondering if we are on the brink of destroying one of New Jersey's greatest assets.
At the center of it all stands Chris Christie, a Republican with clear national ambitions who has staked his reputation on a war with teachers and their unions. He has surrounded himself with some of the leading lights of what education historian Diane Ravitch calls the "corporate reform" movement: Michelle Rhee, Chris Cerf, and Derrell Bradford, among others.
These "reformers" have filled the airwaves and newspapers with tales of "failed" schools and wildly successful "reform" schemes. They've spent untold sums of money buying advertising to sell their vision of education; a vision that will radically change even the best performing schools.
The corporate "reformers" have campaigned for merit pay and vouchers and charter schools and standardized tests like magical elixirs, capable of curing the persistent inequality, racism, and poverty that have plagued this state and this nation for far too long.
But are they right? Do they have the facts on their side?
It's time to find out. Join us this week for a special series: Ed Reform 101: Understanding the Future of New Jersey's Public Schools. We're going to get past the hype and get to the truth about education, reform, and the future of New Jersey's children.
Dear NJ Democrats: We've heard a number of passionate voices speaking out against the reported deal reached by Gov. Christie, Sen. Sweeney and Speaker Oliver to, among other things, strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights with respect to health benefits:
At what point do we stand up for the majority of New Jersey's residents and repudiate the middle class dismantling that this Administration so arrogantly defends?
- Asw. Bonnie Watson-Coleman
Our Democratic Party principles are to stand with the working families that unions represent. Public workers, teachers, police officers, firefighters and the many other employees who dedicate themselves to our state, deserve a seat at the bargaining table to decide their own fate.
- Bergen County Assembly Democrats
"In my 20-plus years experience as Passaic County Democratic Chairman, I have long felt that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of our Party and protects the rights of hard working men and women. The necessary reform needs to be done in a systematic and inclusive way, with two-sides negotiating across the table from one another.
- Passaic County Democratic Chairman John Currie
And, the 10,000-plus workers rallying in Trenton today have some strong words for this shift in policy as well (some too strong, reportedly). For a democratic party that has long relied on organized labor, and been a champion of the middle class it has helped produce, the idea that we would now strip public workers of some of their collective bargaining rights (resulting by all accounts in only modest savings that will have no substantial impact on the budget or property taxes) is a really bad idea.
But, I thought I'd add one more reason for democrats considering supporting the deal to think twice - policy aside, it's just bad politics. Ahem:
Hello, this year is a base election!
New Jersey Politics 101: year 4 of our 4-year cycle of elections (that's this year) produces notoriously low voter turnout. Although the entire legislature may be up for election, history shows that most voters - certainly undeclared and independent voters - stay home. Instead, the election is won by the party who best energizes their base. Guess who that might be this year?
What would Governor Christie do if the New Jersey Supreme Court didn't require him to fund schools? The new Texas budget reminds us:
Texas lawmakers passed a two-year spending plan today that cuts spending on health care, hospitals and higher education in the second most-populous U.S. state, and provides $4 billion less to schools than mandated by law.
That's no problem, since they'll just change the law:
Lawmakers still must pass enabling legislation to change legal funding requirements for the more than 1,100 school districts in the state.
By the way, you'll also notice how, just like here, the Republicans complain about the end of federal stimulus funding. How a reporter can ever quote them without saying they bitterly opposed the funding is beyond me.
Nearly a decade of America's test-based accountability systems, from "adequate yearly progress" to high school exit exams, has shown little to no positive effect overall on learning and insufficient safeguards against gaming the system, a blue-ribbon committee of the National Academies of Science concludes in a new report.
On the recent Abbott decision, Senator Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen) said, “Only the Legislature can appropriate and spend the taxpayers' money, not the executive branch and certainly not the Supreme Court.”
While his sentence is grammatically and factually correct, it has nothing to do with the Abbott decision. The court neither appropriated nor spent the taxpayers’ money. What they did is exactly what their job is - they interpreted the law. A law that is part of the New Jersey State Constitution as codified and implemented by the legislature and signed by the governor.
So let’s cut the crap about this being an “activist” court. Activist courts are those that overturn election laws to prevent recounts in presidential elections and those that amazingly define corporations as persons.
If there’s a problem with the New Jersey Supreme Court it is that some justices lack the decency to recuse themselves when the case involves their benefactor in the governor’s office.
Senator Cardinale and his cronies need a refresher course on Civics 101. And the mainstream media needs to do its job in exposing the conflict of interest on the court.
It doesn't take a genius at math to realize that this year's school budget sweep of approval is mostly because the Governor backed off of mobilizing his base of supporters.
In my town last year there were approximately 9500 votes case with the budget failing 5700 to 3800. This year? Only approximately 5000 votes, with the budget passing 2800 to 2200. In 2009? Only 4800 votes cast with a failure by about 100 votes.
I don't have this year's totals, but checking the state election website I was able to pull the 2010 and 2009 totals. 2010 had about 650K voters against the budgets, and 599K voters for the budgets. Total about 1.2 million votes.
2009? 393K votes for budgets, 336K against. Total of 729K votes.
I have a feeling that this year we will be back down to 2009 totals.
Governor Christie made everyone, but especially his base, care about voting down school budgets. Where were the extra 500K voters this year? Nowhere to be seen.
I think it's pretty clear that he made last year's vote political. Big time. The numbers tell the truth.
To be clear: this is my opinion alone, not that of the other writers here at Blue Jersey. Weigh in with your thoughts below.
Well, today is the day New Jersey voters scrutinize their local school district's budget, carefully reviewing expenditures to make sure they are in line with federal and state mandates while maintaining cost-effectiveness. Voters will pour over teacher contracts and health insurance plans, and then head to the polls, fully conversant in the arcane ways of education financing, to make an informed, rational choice about their community's fiscal plans.
And if you believe that one, I've got a tunnel to Manhattan I'd like to sell you...
School budget votes have become little more than an exercise in venting taxpayer frustration. more below...
As he suggests, it may start with after-school activities but the logic leads to fees for advanced classes and a class system even within a single public school. I think it's a major problem and I am glad my Assemblyman is talking about it.
- Christie: Teacher pay increased 5.9% in two years, which is obviously outrageous!
- Here's the Truth: Recent teacher pay raises are well in line with pay raises throughout the workforce. Teacher pay has lagged behind the average wage in New Jersey for years. And recently settled contracts are in line with the decreasing pay found in the rest of the workforce.
- Christie: Teacher salaries in New Jersey are the 4th highest in the nation.
- Here's the Truth: It's completely deceptive to compare teacher salaries without taking into account the cost of living in different regions of the county. When adjusted, teacher salaries in New Jersey are actually comparatively LOW.
In another self-serving video produced on your dime this week, Gov. Christie tells a story meant to warm your little teacher-hatin' heart, so full of little old ladies and their old-lady cursive, flag-salutes, and gosh-darn-it pride it is! Seriously, this should be a nice story. And I'm sure the teacher, retired and living in the South, and her former pupil think of it that way. But it's hard to hear Christie's tale about how his kindergarten teacher remembered him after all these years, hard to hear how it's just her kind of love and dedication that makes a teacher great. Yes - it is. But does Christie even get the irony?
Because, the way he talks about his own teacher is not how this Governor treats teachers, talks about teachers or appears to believe about teachers. In fact, Christie is for purely numerical evaluations of teacher value, basing it all on student performance on standardized tests (a position even his hometown paper The Daily Record thinks is debatable and torpedoed by Christie's insistence on vitriol and name-calling teacher union leaders).
Its a lovely story he tells. She truly must have been a wonderful teacher. But the irony that her gifts as a teacher would probably be lost in his brand of accountability push. Her commitment. Her kindness. Because ... How would he test for that?
So, at the Assembly Budget Committee hearing in Camden County today, there were a lot of kids rallying for school "choice" today, instead of, you know, going to school. See, I don't remember much support from the charter-voucher fans when thousands of students walked out of school last Spring in protest of Christie education cuts to public schools, and that was an action organized by students, not their parochial schools.
Besides - if these were public school kids out today, they'd be drug mules. Wouldn't they? Just trying to get clear.
Disparaging public employees: There was a reference to "keeping faith" with public employees in Gov. Christie's budget address today. But the public-employee bashing came in the form of: "the rich benefits of the privileged few" who "do not contribute enough". And that sounded more like the man.
Rich: Indeed, for a governor who threw his lot in with New Jersey's richest the same year he touted "shared sacrifice", the only references in the entire speech to "rich" came not in describing his own wealthy contributors and slush fund pals, or the cushy class he protected by vetoing the millionaire's tax. In fact, that word - "rich" - was only used by Christie to describe New Jersey's public employees. A great number of whom are represented by labor unions, the very definition of middle class.
The John Fenwick Elementary School here, unfortunately, was not one of those on the list... The John Fenwick School is about 66 years old, and students must walk through classrooms instead of hallways to get to their own rooms, Michel said.
In 2005, plans were initially put on hold as funding for the state's special needs districts dissolved. Then in 2008, the school was allotted $40.6 million through the SDA's capital plan to build a new school.
Needless to say, the money has still never appeared. There must be many schools around the state in the same boat. I'm not going to complain about Governor Christie here. I want to complain that as far as I can tell, there's never been a true accounting for where the billions of dollars went under the old School Construction Company. Yes, I know it was replaced by a new entity. The online reports on the SCC from the state OIG simply identify the potential for fraud and waste. Was anyone ever prosecuted?
Students are still paying the price to this day and will be for years to come.
The multi-partisan Women's Political Caucus of NJ has a free event coming up designed to prep people considering running for their own local school boards, with a panel of politicians whose point of entry into politics was their own local school board, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, Asw Mila Jasey & Bonnie Olt of the Evesham Twp School Board.
I do a news roundup every morning for Blue Jersey. We didn't used to have a heading for school issues. We do now. Everything in how we teach New Jersey kids is either under direct attack via Governor Christie, or in flux, with the undermining of public education itself, and budget slashes as two key reasons.
When we write our property tax checks - NJ average is $7,555 - the biggest chunk goes to schools. And yet, school elections are usually sleepy little affairs. Last year's were the exception; voters snapped to attention when Christie publicly urged voters to defeat local budgets if local teachers didn't agree to 1-year wage freezes. This was a month after Christie slashed state aid $820 million. And right before Christie bungled a $400 million federal grant that would have gone to Jersey schools if Christie didn't intentionally bungle it to avoid the appearance of working alongside NJ teachers toward a common goal. Right this minute, Gov. Christie is in Washington, about to go on stage for a major speech to American Enterprise Institute - standing room only right now - and his topic is how he took down NJ teachers and plans to remake NJ education.
We are all stakeholders in our public schools. Too few of us are actively engaged in decision-making for them. The March 1 event is free. Maybe you should be running for school board. Voter turnout is - unfortunately - so low that you might be surprised at your own electability if you get supporters' elbows around you.
Free info event is Tuesday night, March 1. Date to file as a candidate is March 8. Elections are April 27.
Maybe I'm getting older -- having one of those 'back in my day' kind of months -- but the number of snow days, delayed openings and early dismissals seems to be on the rise. Of course, I have absolutely no data to support this assertion. Just a gut feeling, probably influenced by the ever-increasing forecast totals from the National Weather Service, and the fact that it will be two days this week home with my kids.
I have the privilege of teaching at Temple University, in the Department of Community and Regional Planning, at our campus in Ambler, PA. Through a very cool setup, I also have students at our Harrisburg Campus taking my classes, with a video conference over IP that continues to amaze. Not only can I see the remote students and they can see me, but all the students are also on camera and microphoned, so my seminar-style discussions happen without a hitch.
So if we're able to do this for my college kids, how far away are we for our public schools? Not even every day, but at some point a school-by-Skype setup for inclement weather, group projects, or other times when getting kids together just is impossible. Our kids still need the socialization of being in school, but why can't we have a "Plan B" for the inevitable snow day? Would certainly advance the President's goals in STEM education...
Solar Energy Saves Money, Could Provide Free Electricity and CASH to Municipalities & Schools in New Jersey
New Jersey taxpayers could net $36.9 million per year, $369 million over 10 years, with the installation of 152.5 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity systems on public schools, community colleges, and each of the public universities in the state.
The systems would pay for themselves within the first 8 years. At 2010 values of electricity and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs), these systems would generate electricity worth approximately $300 Million and SRECs worth $1.2 Billion over the first 10 years, approximately $369 Million in excess of the cost of the systems, and provide virtually free electricity over the remainder of their 35 to 40 year lifespan.
Widespread deployment of solar energy increases the resilience of the electric grid, strengthens national security and can enhance local emergency response capabilities.
Interesting and sensitive questions from some well-informed students at Westfield High School. Parents should be proud. - promoted by Rosi
Two weeks ago, I posted on Blue Jersey about the need to protect our young people from the bullying and harassment that leads many teens to depression or suicide. This week, I had an interesting exchange with teenagers at Westfield High School about what we can do to make things better, both on a government level and on a personal level.
This past Thursday, I visited Westfield High School to speak to a group of nearly 300 students about the political process and the issues facing our county.
continue reading below the fold
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Everyone knows that teachers are important (even if politicians like 
In the world of the corporate reformer, standardized testing drives everything.
