Proposal includes evaluation system that would rate teachers, with at least half of that rating being based on measures of student performance
Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf addresses the press in this December 2010 photo.PRINCETON — Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf today unveiled the Christie administration's education reform proposal, saying it takes on "the last frontier of school reform — the third rail" by changing teacher evaluations and tenure, by ending seniority rules that require newest teachers to be fired first, and by introducing merit pay.
About 150 people, including educators, school advocates, state education officials and elected officials, are in attendance at a panel debate at Princeton University where Cerf at 2 p.m. released the proposal.
The proposal brings together all the pieces of education reform advanced by Gov. Chris Christie.
Key details in the proposal include an evaluation system that would rate teachers as highly effective, effective, partially effective or ineffective — with at least half of that rating being based on measures of student performance.
Also proposed is a tenure system in which teachers would earn the job protection after being rated effective or highly effective for three consecutive years — instead of the current system, where teachers automatically gain tenure after three years and one day on the job.
Merit pay is also a facet, Cerf said. The proposal would require the primary focus in salary increases beyond starting salary be demonstrated effectiveness in student learning; teaching in a high-need school; or teaching in a recognized shortage area, such as science or bilingual education.
The state's largest teacher's union, the New Jersey Education Association, has fiercely opposed most of the reforms.
Some legislators lost no time in critiquing it. With the discussion still in progress, Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D-Essex/Passaic), has already released a statement on the Christie education and tenure proposals.
“We will review this plan, but will do so knowing that solving the problems facing our poorest children in failing in urban schools is more complicated than throwing around slogans and blaming teacher job protections," she said in a prepared statement, adding that poor children and their families face social and economic problems that have a direct negative impact on the ability to learn. She said the consequences of poverty must be addressed..
“One cannot claim to be helping poor children when they’re also cutting the school breakfast program, raising income taxes on working poor parents and reducing access to health care for low-income mothers and their newborn babies," Oliver said. “The Assembly is prepared to work cooperatively to advance responsible education reforms, but is not ready to cast blame on teachers who in many of these failing schools are quite simply real-life heroes.”