Marie Corfield: Teacher Appreciation Week Followup: The good, the bad and the ugly

Marie Corfield: Teacher Appreciation Week Followup: The good, the bad and the ugly:

Teacher Appreciation Week Followup: The good, the bad and the ugly

Although Teacher Appreciation Week is officially behind us, I did promise you a Part 2 of my NJ BOE post—the testimony. But some other stuff happened after Part 1, and as a mom and teacher with only 5 weeks left of school, there's only so much I can fit into one day. I promise I'll get to it this weekend. 

In the meantime, here's what happened in the past week or so...

The good: Newark has a new mayor: educator Ras J. Baraka! He not only understands public education and the challenges inner city school districts face, but he lives, eats, breathes and sleeps it as principal of Central High School. He turned that school around the old fashioned way, through building a dedicated staff, providing meaningful professional development, and investing time and effort in students—not tests! I was honored to be asked to help spread the word about his campaign. I wish him much luck. All education eyes on both sides of the debate, and from all corners of the Garden State (and Wall St. and beyond) will be watching Newark under a microscope to see how he can steer that ship back into the hands of parents and community members and their public schools.

Great news out of Trenton! The Assembly Education Committee unanimously passed the bipartisan bill A3081. According to NJEA:

A-3081 calls for a variety of measures to ensure that any implementation of new standards, testing, and teacher evaluation is carried out thoughtfully. This bill includes:

• An Education Reform Review Task Force to look at how the CCSS are being implemented, use of PARCC assessments, and the implementation and potential effects of the teacher evaluation system. NJEA would be represented on this task force. 

• Student growth percentiles (SGPs) to not be included in the annual summative ratings of teachers for Marie Corfield: Teacher Appreciation Week Followup: The good, the bad and the ugly: