Friday, August 9, 2013

8-9-13 Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman:



@NJEA Tenure Proposal Is Working!
Let me be the very first to congratulate the NJEA, New Jersey's largest teachers union, on their policy triumph!     Jersey City public-school teachers have not fared well under the state’s tenure overhaul, which Gov. Chris Christie signed into law one year ago this week. Under the new rules, which allow an arbitrator instead of a judge to make an essentially final decision on whether a tenured
"College AND Career Ready": A Useless, Phony Phrase
According to the 2011 American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, 32.9 percent of New Yorkers (state, not city) 25 or older had at least a bachelor's degree. On the new,"more realistic" test scores released for New York State this week, 31 percent of students demonstrated "proficiency." Coincidence? Perhaps, but it's got me thinking about something that's bothered me for a while... It's i

YESTERDAY

Charters That Kick Out Kids Have NOTHING To Teach Real Public Schools
I blogged earlier this month about Montclair, NJ, which has become quite possibly the most important front in the war against spreading reforminess to the Jersey 'burbs. Superintendent Penny MacCormack - a Broad Superintendents Academy Book Club graduate and protege of NJDOE Education Commissioner Chris Cerf - has been pushing to bring the Common Core to this integrated suburb, much to the chagrin
New York Test Scores: Reformies Go All In
The "reform" movement is going all in with yesterday's test score releases in New York State: Large numbers of New York students failed reading and math exams last school year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers, and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards.  Across the city, 26 percent of students in third thro