In New Jersey, a year makes quite a difference
January 4, 2012
By Kathleen Nugent, DFER NJ State Director
Sometimes it's hard to realize progress when you're caught up in the daily grind. You tend to take for granted where you are since the focus is always on what's next. So, this post is a glance back at where we were a year ago in three priority areas in New Jersey education: tenure reform, leadership at the NJ Department of Education, and the search for Newark Public Schools' superintendent.
1) New Jersey's tenure reform debate
On December 9, 2010, Senator Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), Chairwoman of the NJ Senate Education Committee, held the state's first-ever hearing on tenure reform. Although conversations on tenure reform today are commonplace in New Jersey, there was no substantive discussion of it before Ruiz's hearing.
Witnesses at the hearing included officials from NJ Department of Education (NJDOE), Colorado state Senator Michael Johnston (sponsor of Colorado's "Great Teachers and Great Leaders" bill - aka SB 191, considered to be one of the strongest teacher evaluation and tenure reform bills in the nation), TNTP's Executive Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Weisberg, and the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), among others. A few highlights from the day's testimony:
• The NJDOE stated there were 35 tenure cases open in 2008, which equated to less than two cases for every 10,000 educators;
• Senator Johnston noted the impact of a highly effective teacher is 2.5 times greater than class size reductions. According to Johnston, under the new teacher evaluation system in Colorado, tenure will be a "badge of honor;"
• Daniel Weisberg summarized findings from a national survey which showed that district evaluations typically fail to differentiate between teachers and do not provide useful feedback or support. He urged that a fair and credible evaluation system must be in place to measure performance, provide teachers with quality feedback, reward excellence, and address the small percentage of persistently poor-performing teachers;
• The NJEA asserted that a process was already in place to remove a teacher if a district believed he or she was not performing up to its standards. They outlined a few suggestions for improvement including a state-mandated and funded mentoring program for new teachers.
Fast forward to today... Senator Ruiz, after diligent research and broad stakeholder engagement, introduced her tenure reform bill called TEACHNJ in June. TEACHNJ ties tenure acquisition and retention to effectiveness, empowers principals by giving them more authority over staff in their schools, ends seniority-based layoffs for new hires, and overall outlines the foundation for a system that would greatly elevate the teaching profession in New Jersey. At the same time, the NJEA introduced a revised education reform agenda building from its previous testimony. Last but not least, the state, under the leadership of Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf, launched a new pilot educator evaluation system.
Serving all kids in all public schools
November 21, 2011
By Kathleen Nugent, DFER NJ State Director
Charter schools are always public schools. They never charge tuition, and they accept any student who wants to attend. Charter laws require that students are admitted by a random lottery drawing in case too many students want to enroll in a single charter school.*
Charters, like traditional public schools, are meant to serve all kids regardless of demographic or socioeconomic background. Most charters serve specific geographic areas and some also serve targeted populations (e.g. single gender), or set preferences to fill underrepresented student populations (e.g. those who qualify for free and reduced lunch). Overall, charters are created to provide autonomy from the traditional system in order to foster innovation in practice with the goal of increased student achievement and success. This autonomy is granted in exchange for increased accountability. If a charter is unsuccessful, notably for student achievement, it should be closed in quick fashion.
While the concept behind charter schools is solid, we know in practice the implementation can be flawed. Some states and their authorizer(s) grant little autonomy to their charter sector, inhibiting their ability to fulfill their mission and making the alternative governance structure essentially moot. Other authorizers don't enforce accountability for charters, allowing terrible practices like poor performance, creaming (when charters select which students enter their schools), and inferior operations, which in turn give the sector a bad name. To fix these problems, two key pieces of the solution are high quality authorization and strong charter laws that close loopholes and realize the ideal vision for charter school operation and growth.
The good news is there are widespread efforts nationwide to improve charter authorizer oversight and reform charter laws, with the ultimate goal of bringing an end to flawed implementation. This push is driven by several factors including the advocacy of key groups like the National Association of Charter School Authorizers as well as the increasing prominence of charters due to the success many have achieved and the support of high profile leaders such as President Obama. Charter school students may only comprise a small percentage of the country's total public school population right now, but in cities like New Orleans and Washington, DC, they are serving significant percentages and reshaping what's possible in urban education.
By Kathleen Nugent, DFER New Jersey State Director
Recently, I was in a meeting with a colleague from the public sector and the subject of education advocacy organizations came up --- in reference to those groups working nationwide as well as those already in or slated to come to New Jersey. Before the discussion even started, my colleague stopped and rolling his eyes said, "Oh that's right...I've heard you advocacy people don't play nice in the sandbox together." This surprised me, as I hadn't realized education advocates had a reputation of not working well together. My colleague, however, assured me that this was common knowledge.
Why it's hard to play nice: If you think about it, the ugly truth is there seem to be many reasons education advocates might not get along --- all of which tend to involve resources. There is a limited donor pool interested in advocacy, a limited number of political leaders willing to take on the issues, a limited number of experts who can speak with authority to those issues, and a limited attention span of the public and media to compete for. Even more, it's difficult to prove worth and earn credibility when so many factors play into the outcome of education policy and legislation.
Why it's a no-brainer to play nice: What's the phrase, "united we stand, divided we fall?" When working to change an institution and massive bureaucracy, clearly it takes a significant effort with strong momentum to succeed. It also takes a lot of smart people who bring a collection of voices with differing points of view working together. The end result is better policy and a base of support to see it through implementation.
Public Education = A "Public Good"?!
June 10, 2011
By Kathleen Nugent, DFER New Jersey State Director
In New Jersey these days, there is a fiery debate around public charter schools and their role in public education. While we have issues to address such as charter quality, accountability, and authorizing in the Garden State, there are other arguments arising that not only are concerning, they lead to discussions which are counterproductive to what New Jersey needs and students deserve.
At a recent charter forum hosted by NJ Spotlight, a representative from the New Jersey branch of Save Our Schools (SOS) stated that public education is a public good, therefore individual choice is not an option and bucks the overall intention of the idea (paraphrased). She compared public education to the quintessential public good - national security. So, a parent in an urban district like Newark, just as a parent in a suburban district like Millburn, should not get a choice about which school their child attends or whether they want a new public school, i.e. a charter, that might better address their child's needs. They must place their child at the neighborhood school run by the local district and funded by taxpayer dollars of the local and state population.
New Jersey ranks 47th overall (just a few spots from last place) for the worst achievement gap between those who are economically advantaged and those who are economically disadvantaged.
Perhaps you're reading this and don't think the overall notion of "public education as a public good" is all that out of line. But I promise you, especially in New Jersey, it is absurd.
Some information for consideration:
• To start, the definition of a public good just doesn't fit - The online Economic Glossary defines a public good as: "Goods that are difficult to keep nonpayers from consuming (excludability), and use of the goods by one person doesn't prevent use by others (rival consumption). Examples include national defense, a clean environment, and any fourth of July fireworks display. Public goods are invariably provided by government because there's no way a private business can profitably produce them. Private businesses can't sell public goods in markets, because they can't charge a price and keep nonpaying people away. Moreover, businesses shouldn't charge a price, because there's no opportunity cost for extra consumers. For efficiency, government needs to pay for public goods through taxes."
Do we need a "rally to restore sanity" for education reform?
February 23, 2011
By Kathleen Nugent, New Jersey State Director
The good news is right now there's a raging national debate about the U.S. public school system. Two key points of the debate are remaining competitive globally and, importantly, making sure every student - regardless of income or demographic - has access to an excellent education. The potential of this collective attention is huge.
Yet we often seem to get in our own way with next steps. Suddenly, there are sides to take. Who knew there could be sides when talking about what's best for kids? Even worse, extreme views create false bogeymen. Extremism - defined here as projecting impossible realities in the face of proposed change -obscures facts, misleads the majority, and forms the basis of our "insanity." President Obama and Jon Stewart are among the many issuing calls to end this bad and potentially harmful communication. We have to be better than this.
As the education reform debate continues, so does the insanity and ensuing hysteria. Here are a few examples and some counterpoints:
Insanity #1: Adding student achievement to teacher evaluations will make a teacher's employment contingent on one high stakes test, one proficiency score, and/or the whim of a principal on any given day.
Some sanity: No state or district has proposed a teacher evaluation metric that places full weight on test scores. At most, student achievement - consisting of multiple measures - makes up to half of the evaluation. To be sure, no one claims to have designed the perfect teacher evaluation system with the perfect formula either. Evaluating teacher effectiveness is extremely complicated and smart minds across the country are working to improve what exists. But just because there's no one clear answer does not mean we shouldn't try to improve the current system, which most often doesn't consider teacher impact at all.
DFER_News: DFER Press: The overdue split among Democrats on education reform in WA - http://t.co/Z7QROaby #educationreform @seattletimes February 22, 2012 9:22 AM
DFER_News: RT @edtrust: NY teacher agreement is a "critical step forward for #students, #teachers, taxpayers, and employers." http://t.co/XuEcmZF5 February 21, 2012 3:13 PM
DFER_News: DFER Press: A clash of views on city schools - http://t.co/ZV1Vh9km @timesunion #edchat February 21, 2012 10:06 AM
DFER_News: DFER Press: Caucus resists education change - http://t.co/hwb19UEA @timesunion @NYGovCuomo #edchat February 21, 2012 9:51 AM
