Gov. Chris Christie says his administration has developed a new system for reviewing and rating school performance for the state's annual schools report card
Gov. Chris Christie says his administration has developed a new system for reviewing and rating school performance for the state's annual schools report card.SECAUCUS — Gov. Chris Christie said today his administration has developed a new system for reviewing and rating school performance for the state's annual schools report card.
The state's nearly 600 school districts will be classified in to one of three categories; "focus schools," the worst, followed by "priority schools," and the best will be called "reward" schools. It's unclear whether the best performing schools would receive any additional perks for achieving "reward" status.
Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said the new system will better allow education officials to focus on the bottom 5 percent of failing schools and will allow for a "more sensible and nuanced way of talking about schools" which would lead to "more sophisticated and targeted intervention" by education officials for the worst-performing schools.
The reviews will compare schools to others with similar demographics, take into account performance on state tests over time, look at how well-prepared for college students are and at the achievement gaps between high- and low-income students.
The new system was outlined in the state's application for a waiver from some requirements in No Child Left Behind law, which critics say is too rigid and sets unrealistic standards. New Jersey was one of 11 states to apply for the waiver this week.
President Barack Obama said in September that states that do certain things such as develop better teacher evaluation systems can apply for waivers.
Making changes to the education system is now one of the Republican governor's most pressing policy plans. Christie wants to use public money to fund scholarships to send children in underperforming public schools to private schools, eliminate lifetime job protections that come with tenure for teachers, and paying teachers based partly on how much their students improve on standardized tests.
But those proposals have languished in the Legislature since he rolled them out a year ago.
"I'd like to get them moving much more quickly on it. They move at the pace they move on — I can only do so much," Christie said Tuesday while visiting Secaucus High School. "This work doesn't happen overnight. It takes months to forge compromise."
At the same time Christie was saying that he didn't expect things to happen immediately, his office was sending out news releases titled, "Recess is Over: Time to End the Year of Inaction By the Legislature," chastising lawmakers for stalling on his proposals.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has said he is willing to talk about moving tenure reform said he won't get rid of seniority rules. He supports merit pay, but for schools, not individual teachers.
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• Gov. Christie in Secaucus urges state Legislature to 'step up,' pass four education bills