Jersey Jazzman:
Stupid SGO Tricks
I notice that the NJDOE has slapped up a "Top 5 Frequently Asked Questions" about Student Growth Objectives on their teacher evaluation website. SGOs are a mandatory part of AchieveNJ -- known around here as Operation Hindenburg -- that will count for 15% of a teachers evaluation rating. As I mentioned before: there is no research base to back up the use of SGOs in evaluating teachers
Tales of Inequity in Chris Christie's New Jersey, Part I
All high schools are equal in Chris Christie's New Jersey - but, as David Sciarra explains in this great piece, some are more equal than others (all emphases mine): The buildings of Phillipsburg High School and Trenton Central High School are remarkably similar. Phillipsburg was built in 1928, Trenton in 1932, in classical style. Both are iconic, graduating outstanding young men and women over th
OCT 09
Why Should NJ Teachers Unions Play Along?
Chris Christie has spent the last four years blaming the teachers unions for everything from state budget woes to the "opportunity gap" to halitosis. Why, then, would anyone be surprised when these same unions finally decide they've had enough? The Newark Teachers Union on Thursday declined to sign off on a $30 million federal grant application, an indication of how fractured labor rela
OCT 05
What I Would Ask Exxon/Mobil's CEO at Education Nation
Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of Exxon/Mobil and noted expert on education, will be doing a "one-on-one" during NBC's Education Nation. He will join a host of celebrities, politicians, businesspeople, and educators in discussing our nation's school system. Here's what I'd ask him if I could: "Mr. Tillerson, in 2012, you received total compensation equal to $27.4 million. "
Groundhog Day in Perth Amboy
Third time's the charm? The Board of Education unanimously voted Wednesday night to place Superintendent of Schools Janine Walker Caffrey on paid administrative leave. Board members authorized Board of Education President Mark Carvajal or his designee to hire an acting superintendent and to contact the county superintendent’s office for assistance. Caffrey said she found the timing of the boa
OCT 04
RIP Jean Anyon
Anyon was a scholar who documented the most obvious thing in the world: Professor Anyon, who died on Sept. 7 at 72, was one of the first people to study that landscape in detail — and among the first to assert that without accompanying social reforms like job creation, antipoverty initiatives and urban renewal, the problems of education in urban, poor areas would never be surmounted. “The struc
OCT 03
Another Reformy Practice Not Grounded in Research: SGOs
Like all teachers around New Jersey, I have been attending workshops and working with my administrators and colleagues on a new, reformy project: Student Growth Objectives. My SGO will count for 15% of my annual evaluation - a percentage mandated by state code - because I teach an "untested" subject: in other words, I don't teach math or language arts between 3rd and 8th Grade, just like
OCT 02
New Depths of Sanctimony From Arne Duncan
Anthony Cody listens to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and discovers our Reformy Czar slathers himself in sanctimony the way a 13-year-old boy douses himself in Axe Body Spray: Secretary Duncan: Also inhabiting this bubble are some arm chair pundits who insist our efforts to improve public education are somehow doomed to fail, either because they believe the government is incapable of meanin