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The students were joined by dozens of parents, teachers and community activists.
Speakers at the rally said education is a right, not a privilege and schools deserve an economic bailout, too. They add that the city, state and federal government should prioritize public education and invest in children's future, not slash the budget, which only makes matters worse.
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"These are things we really count on," says 16-year-old Amber Perry who attends Lincoln Park High School on the city's north side.
Her classmate, Dalilah Villafane, agrees, "I don't think it's fair that CPS officials are getting salary raises while our badly-needed programs are getting cut. We don't
When the Hackettstown School District presented its $28.5 million 2010-11 budget April 1, the document lacked 18 full-time positions -- seven of them classroom teachers -- who are working this year.
The district is hardly alone in making staff cuts to cope with aid cuts and rising costs. However, Superintendent Robert Gratz told the audience that at least the teaching positions could be restored, if the teachers agreed to a wage freeze advocated by Gov. Chris Christie.
The district teachers union was unable to provide an answer that night, and representatives could not be reached for an update on their discussions this week.
"They missed a great opportunity," Gratz said, acknowledging a concession also could help convince voters to approve the budget April 20.
The prospect of a wage freeze has New Jersey educators in a difficult position. Unions that consent could save teachers' jobs. The alternative is to resist the pressure from the governor and lose
However, I was frustrated by his statement in agreeing with “legitimate weaknesses’’ federal regulators found in Massachusetts’ Race to the Top grant application: “Teachers unions are too quick to resist linking teacher evaluations to student performances in statewide tests.’’
Doesn’t he know that the Massachusetts Teachers Association and many teachers unions, including the Cambridge Teachers Association, of which I am a member, signed on to the state’s application, specifically because we wanted to be part of the conversation? How does that desire to collaborate translate to being “quick to resist’’?
Moreover, I have thought about merit pay often in my career. I reject it in its simplest form, not because I am “quick’’ in my assessment, but because I have yet to find research that supports the claim that it improves student achievement.
How will teachers of non-tested subject areas be rewarded, as they can have a subtle yet powerful impact on student success? Couldn’t merit pay create an insidious incentive to shuttle the most difficult students between classes and schools? Mightn’t it risk eroding effective collaboration if one teacher is perceived
Many teachers watched with horror last week as Florida lawmakers passed what may be the most controversial and sweeping education overhaul in the history of the state, with changes that will tie their pay to student performance and eliminate long-term contracts.
Having lost a bitter fight against Republicans pushing the legislation, many teachers now have pinned their hopes on a veto from Gov. Charlie Crist.
But teachers aren't the only ones monitoring the state's political leaders.
Florida is at the center of a budding national movement to pay teachers for how much their students learn, and to fire them if students don't learn enough.
One reason the action in Tallahassee is getting so much attention: No one really knows whether merit pay works, and few states have gone as far and as fast as Florida did Thursday night and early Friday in an emotionally charged marathon House session. One legislator opposed to the measure called it "Frankenstein's monster."
"The state is getting ahead of itself. The science isn't there. The data isn't there," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center for Education Policy, a nonprofit organization in Washington that
Department of Education, Editorials, Joel Klein, President Barack Obama
Race to the Top, a promising Obama administration contest that lured New York state to apply for $803 million in federal funds to reform education, has been a disappointment for the Empire State so far.
New York's initial bid was ranked 15th by Race to the Top judges, well out of the money. The White House boldly deemed the grant program a success after awarding money last month to only two tiny states—Delaware and Tennessee—while telling other states to try again in June. Some won't bother, having invested time and resources writing proposals that, in retrospect, had no chance of being funded.
But New York will give it another go, this time with $700 million at stake. Major changes in its application are needed if it is to avoid another rejection.
The first-round failure proved right the education advocates who had warned of the application's weaknesses, which included lukewarm support from district superintendents and unions. It also demonstrated the folly of legislators who expected New York to be awarded money without enacting key reforms sought by the White House.
Two shortcomings of New York's education system stand out: a law that caps the number of charter schools statewide at 200, and a simplistic teacher-evaluation system in which instructors are graded either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.” These grades stem from classroom visits by principals, who sometimes give poor teachers passing grades and move them to other schools,where the
