A New Jersey Farmer Posts

Tom Moran, the Editorial Page Editor of the Newark Star-Ledger, is now regretting the paper's endorsement of Chris Christie for Governor in 2013. Apparently the paper's Op-Ed head honchos couldn't see that Christie's notorious bullying might end up to be something of a problem.

Hey, New Jersey, this is your future, and it's starting in September. The states that adopted tests early are figuring out that they don't contribute to a quality education, and they're pulling back.

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer
Hey kids, remember in June when the Obama campaign was supposedly panicking? I sure do. That's why I wrote about it.
Well here we are again at a crisis point in the race. The debate went very badly for the president. He seemed uninterested, unengaged, unfocused, blah, blah, blah. In fact, he was all of those things. But to think that this race is over or that the debate performance means that he...

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

And I ain't makin' that up, neither.

In honor of back-to-school time here in the Garden State (I know that schools in other states might have started in August), it's time for us to recognize the unparalleled job that New Jersey's public school teachers do year in and year out.

We consistently rank in the top 3 nationwide in student outcomes on most available measures; SAT, AP and NAEP scores, college acceptances (too many graduates go out-of-state, though), writing achievement and overall performance. We have some significant gaps between how suburban students perform and how their urban counterparts score, and that is a sore point both economically and politically.
But even with that huge caveat, we are the envy of other states. How do I know? Because this past July I attended the National Education Association convention in Washington, D.C., and many of my colleagues around the country told me so.

I spoke with delegates from Tennessee, and they told me that their statewide tests dictated their curriculum to the point that they had to jettison most enrichment material from their classrooms to make sure they covered the test material. They also said that for the two months before the tests, they did nothing but review and drill.

And just in case you think this is professional bias, I sat next to a family from Tennessee on the train down to DC, and their daughter, a high school senior from a town near Nashville, told me how ridiculous (her word) the tests were and how they made the teachers stop teaching fun stuff (her words) and worry about the tests. Her parents seconded her remarks, then went out of the way to tell me that they were Republicans, but didn't agree with Governor Christie's attempts to impose a Tennessee solution on New Jersey. It's amazing what people will tell you if you look them in the eye and just listen to what they say.

Anyway, when I told the Tennessee teachers where I was from, they told me that they loved the NJEA because it had a backbone and stood up, as much as it could, to the governor.

I got the same treatment from Idaho. The president of the Idaho Education Association also professed admiration for New Jersey's public school teachers because she said that Idaho was moving towards a state salary system and that the state had appropriated money that should have gone to teacher's salaries to pay for a misguided technology venture that has no research behind it. I asked if the teachers had any say in the decision, and of course the answer was no. So much for professional respect.

From California's delegation, I heard the most distressing stories of administrative overreach, even to the point where an entire elementary school's faculty was being replaced because two teachers were accused of lewd acts with students. The administration's rationale? "We don't want any more surprises." I am not condoning anything the accused teachers might have done, but where are the due process protections promised to teachers as citizens of the United States? As I spoke to the California delegates about these and other occurrences, they said they thought that this could not happen in New Jersey because of its strong association. I certainly hope so.

Other teachers I spoke with consistently said the same things about New Jersey once I identified myself from the state: They admired and respected the NJEA for standing up for member's rights in a state where teachers still have strong protections and a unified membership. Even the new tenure law, signed by Christie in the dog days of August, keeps due process and tenure protections for all teachers who earn it, even as it takes longer to procure and streamlines the process of firing a teacher who doesn't meet local standards.

So as we begin another school year, I am proud to say that I am a New Jersey public school teacher.

I am proud to say that I am committed to educating children and young adults so they can become productive members of society. And I am proud to be a member of NJEA, an organization that has a national reputation as one that fosters a pro-education ethic, and one that has the best interests of its members at heart.

I've focused primarily on public schools here, but it's been my pleasure and honor to have worked in private schools and to have trained teachers who work in a wide variety of educational settings. Colleagues, remember that we do one of the most important paid jobs in the country. We have earned honor and respect and we show it through our deeds and actions. Have a great school year.

With the GOP convention over and the afterglow fading with the blue moon, I found myself wondering where this all leaves Governor Christie. My take on his speech was that it was decent, but not a very good Republican Convention Keynote Address. Christie seemed out of breath and a little too excited at the beginning, and even after he settled down his movements seemed at odds with his tone. He ended well, if you're a fan of such ideas, and that's what people tend to remember, though the looks on the faces of Ann, Mitt and Condi told you exactly what they thought of his presentation.

For the future, I don't believe that the Governor hurt himself in New Jersey because, well, it wasn't anything we haven't seen from the man. On the national level, I think his reputation took a bit of a hit because of the perception that he focused too much on his accomplishments and not enough on what Mitt Romney would do for the country. He's got four years to smooth over any rough spots and I fully expect him to run for president if he gets elected and Romney doesn't.

It will be interesting to hear the comparisons between Christie's speech and the one to be delivered by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro this week in Charlotte.  I'm looking forward to a more inclusive convention (are there no Republican homosexuals?) and fewer lies, especially about Medicare.

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

Tired of the playground brawl that is the presidential election? Does the thought of two wonky, somewhat unpopular guys playing nyah-nyah get you down? Well, there's always the drama created by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

But now that's getting old too.
Yes, it seems as though the GOP's darling is playing a little thinner these days and his antics don't carry quite the same weight as they did eight months ago when he was denying himself, and the poor old United States, a run for the presidency. For the record, Christie will not be Mitt Romney's running mate, nor will he be the Republican Party's candidate for president any time soon, if ever. He might be a featured speaker at the GOP convention or get a cabinet post in a Romney administration and leave the frustrations of Trenton behind, but my sense is that he'd get bored being one of the lesser cabinet members and he could conceivably get us into some kind of war if offered State, Defense or Trade Representative. Secretary of Education? That picture of Samson pushing down the pillars comes to mind. Transportation? Why, use a helicopter to get around the traffic.

The truth is that people in other parts of the country think they know Chris Christie, but really, how do you export that personality to the rest of the country? I've always disliked the stereotype of a "New Jersey attitude" and believe it to be harmful to the state, but even I won't deny that Christie does exude a certain Garden State brusqueness. The problem is that it's getting old here. A few months on the road and you'd see video of people with their mouths agape and eyes aghast at the man. Is he still popular with the base? No doubt. But the rest of the country has some manners, and the governor has shown that at critical times, he doesn't. Even worse, if Romney doesn't win in November, then Christie might get tagged as a loser for supporting him. That would seriously damage his aura.

Don't get me wrong. Christie can point to some significant legislative accomplishments including a 2% cap on municipal spending and the public worker pension and benefits bill that makes teachers, police and firefighters pay more while allowing him to delay full pension payments to the state. And rumor has it that he's about to sign a teacher tenure reform bill that streamlines the process of firing an ineffective teacher, but not after two negative evaluations. That he was able to get the NJEA to the table on tenure is a win for him, but it's only a small part of what he wanted to accomplish, and he's frustrated. The suburbs are pushing back on Charter Schools, and the legislature will not give him that tax cut that is the gold standard of every Republican lawmaker looking to win national acclaim.

The problem is that the Democrats will continue to hold the legislature even if Christie wins reelection in 2013. What fun would that be? And how many more YouTube videos can you make berating retired public workers, soldiers and lefties who question his policies? (No, I will not provide links to those videos, but you can find them easily enough.) So in this summer of discontent, the good governor has some decisions to make. None of them are easy, but all will have long term impact on his career. I expect that he will carry on as he has been because what he's done so far is not an act. It's who he is. And that might be the biggest problem of them all.

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

Remember the beginning of June? Lousy jobs numbers, Obama's muddled message and the popular assumption that the president was going to lose court cases on immigration and health care? Hope and change came quickly and it's the Republicans who are back on their heels. For now.
Not only was the Supreme Court's health care decision a deflating coda to the term that also saw most of Arizona's immigration law struck down (though the right can still claim a victory over checking papers), the news that Chief Justice Roberts actually changed his decision is proving to be too much on the rightward flank. Never mind  that the court struck at the heart of the left wing's argument that the Commerce Clause allows Congress to require people to buy health care, or that the states would lose all of their Medicaid funds if they don't comply with ACA. That turncoat Roberts voted to uphold the law!

What's worse is that the Republican message machine went into overdrive, using the court's ruling to call Obama a taxer gone crazy, only to have Mitt Romney say that it's not a tax. Conservatives already suspicious about Mitt's devotion to their cause will turn even redder over that.

The polls are not being any kinder to Romney as support for the health care law rose after the decision, though a majority still do not support it. The silver lining is that the GOP base is fired up big time and that could pay dividends in November.

But Mitt is not the only Republican facing headwinds. Chris Christie called a special session of the New Jersey Legislature on Monday to get the Democrats to support his proposed tax cut, but to no avail. He even tried to make some room in the budget by line item vetoing $650 million dollars worth of social programs that serve women and children, but those darn lefties wouldn't budge.

This is but one week in a long campaign, but the GOP was banking on a health care win to bolster their summer message. It might actually work to their advantage to have the ruling go against them because their fundraising has increased and Obama is still polling below 50% in most surveys. Still, I think they saw a different scenario and Mitt's going off message will not help. More fireworks for the fourth of July.

Ain't this a great country?  

I understand at this point that Governor Christie is competing only against himself, but how many misleading, incomplete ideas can one person have? If he had more than his ALEC talking points we might be able to have a conversation, but his comments yesterday were truly, amazingly wrong. In case you missed them:

The Christie push came at one of his town hall meetings, this one before more than 600 people in a Haddonfield middle school. He again invoked the example of just 17 teachers facing tenure charges as ineffective in the past decade, out of more than 100,000 in the classroom.

"Do we really believe there are only 17 ineffective teachers in New Jersey?" he asked the receptive audience.

No, we don't, and that includes those of us in education. What the governor misses is that hundreds of potentially ineffective tenured teachers are weeded out in the first three years of employment. More leave the profession by the end of their 5th year. And maybe there are only 17 tenure cases because the administrators haven't kept accurate records or gave the teachers a pass because they didn't want to make waves or didn't want to believe that someone they actually hired could be ineffective.

Perhaps the 17 cases are the result of political interference or vendettas against union agitators or are witch hunts. We don't know, and here's the key, neither does the governor. If these 17 teachers deserve to lose their jobs because they are ineffective, I say mazel tov! The system works. But again, all Christie has are the numbers.

As for today's hearings on the Diegnan (D-Middlesex) bill, I am cautiously optimistic. Here are the key provisions of the bill:

Tenure would be provided after four years employment in a school district;

A new teacher would spend their first year in a mentorship program during which the new teacher will be partnered with a highly effective teacher for assistance, support and guidance;

Each school district would have to annually submit to the education commissioner the evaluation plan it will use to test the effectiveness of teachers and administrators;

Any teacher or administrator who receives an ineffective rating on two consecutive annual evaluations may face tenure charges;

Any teacher or administrator who receives an ineffective rating on three consecutive annual evaluations must face tenure charges;

Binding arbitration would be required for any contested tenure cases, with the arbitrator's decision becoming binding and not subject to appeal;

The Public Employees Relations Commission would choose the arbitrator from a permanent list of 20, eight of which will be designated by the New Jersey Education Association, eight by the New Jersey School Boards Association and four by the New Jersey Principal and Supervisors Association through mutual agreement.

Contested cases would no longer be referred to Administrative Law Judges, and the final determination would no longer be made by the education commissioner;

The hearing before the arbitrator must be held within 60 days of the case being assigned, and the arbitrator would have 30 days to render a decision.

As someone who's taught Alternate Route courses, I have always been an advocate for a mentoring year for new teachers. For too long we've assumed that all new teachers have the tools and skills to manage their classrooms and guide students through the curriculum. Many do, but not all. New teachers should learn from the best.

I also welcome the provisions that speed the tenure charge process and move it to arbitration. That the New Jersey School Boards Association is concerned only with who gets to pick the arbitrators is a positive step that should be remedied easily.

My concerns center on who gets to decide if a teacher faces tenure charges after two ineffective evaluations. The bill says that a teacher may face them. What does that mean? Also, requiring a decision in a tenure case in 30 days might lead to rushed judgements. Evidence is not always so cooperative.

I am heartened by Senator Ruiz's reaction to what transpired today. She altered her bill to allow for more seniority rights, after initially wanting to end them.

The key to any tenure reform plan must be the continued due process protection that lies at its heart. Adjusting years or determining who hears a case amount to so much window dressing compared to the constitutional rights inherent in fair dismissal cases. Ruiz and Diegnan recognize this. The Governor doesn't.

This just in from state Senator Theresa Ruiz:

"Tenure reform will boost respect for the profession," Ruiz said.

"It will turn teaching into something that's evaluated and tenure into something that's honorable, not a job protection defined by time."

It's nice to know that the author of a bill that will shape the course of teaching and learning in New Jersey doesn't understand that tenure is a fair dismissal due process right, not a job protection defined by time. It's also nice to know that she doesn't realize that teachers are evaluated (or should be) by their principals or supervisors over the course of the academic year.

Evaluating teachers using student test scores will not lead to teachers gaining more respect. It will lead to teaching to the test and a curriculum that is narrowly focused on that test.

I'm looking forward to the hearings on June 14.

promoted by Rosi

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

We seem to have come to a critical point in the education deform movement. No, that's not a typo: I don't mean reform, I mean deform, because the people who want to use unreliable and faulty data to evaluate teachers and deny educators their negotiated due process rights are not reformers and never have been. They are out to twist education from a public responsibility to a privatized option whose purpose is to serve the needs of their wealthy supporters at the expense of unions and educators who know best how the system works and how it can best serve children.
It's high time that policy makers, including Governors, Commissioners of Education (including ACTING Commissioners) and government officials respect the fact that educators know what works in the classroom and that they need to be intimately involved in the decision-making process. If you don't include the stakeholders, any efforts at improving education will ultimately fail. We need to be loud and clear about what's at stake, and to call for real reform that benefits parents, students and teachers. Please join me in expressing your concern about the direction that education reform is taking. We are headed down the wrong path.

Every word in this sentence is a link to an article that details the folly of using student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Yet, that's exactly what the deformers want to do.

If what happened in New York City isn't scary enough, consider this: Under the Value Added Model, teachers will be distilled down to a number and that number will stay with them for every year in which they teach. If the number is considered good, they'll be OK, but if that number decreases, be ready for a storm that will make Katrina seem like a drizzle. Parents will want the teacher with the 86 rating, not you and your paltry 78. And just why were you a 92 last year but an 83 this year? It will be bad. Teachers will be two-students-who-ate-lousy-breakfasts-on-test-day away from being the teacher that nobody wants for their child.

In New Jersey,  there's a bit of controversy over a  proposed teacher tenure bill because it would grandfather in all teachers who are currently working in schools. Never mind that those teachers have already been vetted during their 3 year probationary period. Governor Christie believes that New Jersey's teachers as failing (even when they're not) and that the NJEA lies about everything.

For the record, I have no problem with my dues money going to pay for advertisements and political action that calls out a governor who knows next to zilch about teaching or education or reforming or being diplomatic or appropriate or how to be a role model for anyone other than your average bully. And in a delicious irony, our bully-in-chief  signed an anti-bullying law that he refused to pay for and that was declared unconstitutional. Of course, there's money for Christie's tax cut proposal, but so far the response has been lukewarm at best.

Right now the deformers have the high ground. We know that the education and teacher bashing model is working because morale among educators has reached a new low. And that's exactly what our society needs in a world of hyper-competitiveness, where education and skills will be the coin of the realm. Having a teaching staff that knows it's unappreciated by the various elements who want to undermine public education is a sure fire way to keep American students undereducated for the future. And it's a terrific strategy for  attracting and keeping the smart, creative, energetic, technologically savvy people we'll need in education now and in the future.

The time is growing short for educators to take the lead and turn the deform movement into an actual educational reform movement. Get involved and let your voice be heard.

Are we not Teachers?

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter

promoted by Rosi

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

We seem to have come to a critical point in the education deform movement. No, that's not a typo: I don't mean reform, I mean deform, because the people who want to use unreliable and faulty data to evaluate teachers and deny educators their negotiated due process rights are not reformers and never have been. They are out to twist education from a public responsibility to a privatized option whose purpose is to serve the needs of their wealthy supporters at the expense of unions and educators who know best how the system works and how it can best serve children.
It's high time that policy makers, including Governors, Commissioners of Education (including ACTING Commissioners) and government officials respect the fact that educators know what works in the classroom and that they need to be intimately involved in the decision-making process. If you don't include the stakeholders, any efforts at improving education will ultimately fail. We need to be loud and clear about what's at stake, and to call for real reform that benefits parents, students and teachers. Please join me in expressing your concern about the direction that education reform is taking. We are headed down the wrong path.

Every word in this sentence is a link to an article that details the folly of using student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Yet, that's exactly what the deformers want to do.

If what happened in New York City isn't scary enough, consider this: Under the Value Added Model, teachers will be distilled down to a number and that number will stay with them for every year in which they teach. If the number is considered good, they'll be OK, but if that number decreases, be ready for a storm that will make Katrina seem like a drizzle. Parents will want the teacher with the 86 rating, not you and your paltry 78. And just why were you a 92 last year but an 83 this year? It will be bad. Teachers will be two-students-who-ate-lousy-breakfasts-on-test-day away from being the teacher that nobody wants for their child.

In New Jersey,  there's a bit of controversy over a  proposed teacher tenure bill because it would grandfather in all teachers who are currently working in schools. Never mind that those teachers have already been vetted during their 3 year probationary period. Governor Christie believes that New Jersey's teachers as failing (even when they're not) and that the NJEA lies about everything.

For the record, I have no problem with my dues money going to pay for advertisements and political action that calls out a governor who knows next to zilch about teaching or education or reforming or being diplomatic or appropriate or how to be a role model for anyone other than your average bully. And in a delicious irony, our bully-in-chief  signed an anti-bullying law that he refused to pay for and that was declared unconstitutional. Of course, there's money for Christie's tax cut proposal, but so far the response has been lukewarm at best.

Right now the deformers have the high ground. We know that the education and teacher bashing model is working because morale among educators has reached a new low. And that's exactly what our society needs in a world of hyper-competitiveness, where education and skills will be the coin of the realm. Having a teaching staff that knows it's unappreciated by the various elements who want to undermine public education is a sure fire way to keep American students undereducated for the future. And it's a terrific strategy for  attracting and keeping the smart, creative, energetic, technologically savvy people we'll need in education now and in the future.

The time is growing short for educators to take the lead and turn the deform movement into an actual educational reform movement. Get involved and let your voice be heard.

Are we not Teachers?

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter

promoted by Rosi

Cross-posted at A New Jersey Farmer

We seem to have come to a critical point in the education deform movement. No, that's not a typo: I don't mean reform, I mean deform, because the people who want to use unreliable and faulty data to evaluate teachers and deny educators their negotiated due process rights are not reformers and never have been. They are out to twist education from a public responsibility to a privatized option whose purpose is to serve the needs of their wealthy supporters at the expense of unions and educators who know best how the system works and how it can best serve children.
It's high time that policy makers, including Governors, Commissioners of Education (including ACTING Commissioners) and government officials respect the fact that educators know what works in the classroom and that they need to be intimately involved in the decision-making process. If you don't include the stakeholders, any efforts at improving education will ultimately fail. We need to be loud and clear about what's at stake, and to call for real reform that benefits parents, students and teachers. Please join me in expressing your concern about the direction that education reform is taking. We are headed down the wrong path.

Every word in this sentence is a link to an article that details the folly of using student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Yet, that's exactly what the deformers want to do.

If what happened in New York City isn't scary enough, consider this: Under the Value Added Model, teachers will be distilled down to a number and that number will stay with them for every year in which they teach. If the number is considered good, they'll be OK, but if that number decreases, be ready for a storm that will make Katrina seem like a drizzle. Parents will want the teacher with the 86 rating, not you and your paltry 78. And just why were you a 92 last year but an 83 this year? It will be bad. Teachers will be two-students-who-ate-lousy-breakfasts-on-test-day away from being the teacher that nobody wants for their child.

In New Jersey,  there's a bit of controversy over a  proposed teacher tenure bill because it would grandfather in all teachers who are currently working in schools. Never mind that those teachers have already been vetted during their 3 year probationary period. Governor Christie believes that New Jersey's teachers as failing (even when they're not) and that the NJEA lies about everything.

For the record, I have no problem with my dues money going to pay for advertisements and political action that calls out a governor who knows next to zilch about teaching or education or reforming or being diplomatic or appropriate or how to be a role model for anyone other than your average bully. And in a delicious irony, our bully-in-chief  signed an anti-bullying law that he refused to pay for and that was declared unconstitutional. Of course, there's money for Christie's tax cut proposal, but so far the response has been lukewarm at best.

Right now the deformers have the high ground. We know that the education and teacher bashing model is working because morale among educators has reached a new low. And that's exactly what our society needs in a world of hyper-competitiveness, where education and skills will be the coin of the realm. Having a teaching staff that knows it's unappreciated by the various elements who want to undermine public education is a sure fire way to keep American students undereducated for the future. And it's a terrific strategy for  attracting and keeping the smart, creative, energetic, technologically savvy people we'll need in education now and in the future.

The time is growing short for educators to take the lead and turn the deform movement into an actual educational reform movement. Get involved and let your voice be heard.

Are we not Teachers?

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter