Christie bends on state tests, parents thrown under the school bus
Gov. Chris Christie has agreed to a two-year delay in using the results of new standardized tests to evaluate New Jersey public school teachers, according to Statehouse and other sources. He also will reduce, from 30 percent to 20 percent, how much the scores will count in future teacher evaluations. He will not, however, agree to a moratorium on testing pending the work of a special study commission that would have at least two years to study the new testing program. The compromise, expected to form the basis of either an executive order or newly proposed regulations to be issued by Christie this week, is likely to make teacher unions and legislators happy but ignores the demands of less powerful parent groups.
Barring a change of heart by the teacher unions or key legislators, the compromise is likely to be put into effect in the fall.
“The tests are coming and they’re coming this year,” said one source close to the Statehouse negotiations. “They’re not going away and they won’t be studied forever.’’
An assembly bill with much stricter limits on the testing program sailed through the Assembly by a bipartisan, veto-proof, 72-4 margin with two abstentions. It was expected to be put up for a Senate vote the following week but the rare demonstration of actual legislative initiative and courage was, as expected, pulled by state Senate President and Christie-bro Sen. Steve Sweeney (D-Burlington).
Sweeney and others then went into negotiations to find a compromise and possibly avoid a veto override vote during which most Republican legislators would miraculously have a change of heart about the need for the legislation and rally around their political godfather.
Sweeney’s intervention—first signaled by the cold feet of state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), chair of the Senate Education Committee who would not press for a vote on the Assembly bill—gives the Senate president and likely gubernatorial candidate an opportunity to kiss and make up with the New Jersey Education Christie bends on state tests, parents thrown under the school bus | Bob Braun's Ledger: