Gov. Christie goes national with N.J. education battle | State | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

Gov. Christie goes national with N.J. education battle | State | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

Gov. Christie goes national with N.J. education battle

THURSDAY, 02 DECEMBER 2010 09:37

Share this Twitter Myspace Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot Furl Yahoo Technorati Newsvine Facebook Export PDF Print E-mail Tags schools school charter christie jersey state reform education public federal funding choice aid action providing million reported number high cuts

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

And the battle rages on between Governor Christie and the state school system. Speaking before a room full of education reform advocates, Christie denounced the efforts of New Jersey's school officials and the union.

Christie appeared Tuesday as the keynote speaker for Excellence in Action in Washington, D.C., an educational forum started by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

According to NorthJersey.com, Christie railed against the New Jersey Education Association again, for opposing merit pay, tenure reform and expanded school-choice programs, such as charter schools.

He spoke about his influence in urging voters to reject school budgets that did not include cuts he had been seeking in teacher benefits back in April. And he said superintendents needed to sacrifice their high salaries until they can show how their schools have improved.

Christie has made school choice a priority in education reform, and his administration plans to expand the number of charter schools, which are public schools that operate separately from local school administration. Right now, 73 New Jersey charter schools get public funding.

Seven new charter schools will open in September, and 50 others are pending. But New Jersey's

School district gambled, lost on class sizes, now tough decisions await

School district gambled, lost on class sizes, now tough decisions await

Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post

Art Johnson at a school board meeting last month

By CARA FITZPATRICK

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 9:02 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010

Posted: 6:13 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010

• Post a Comment
• E-mail
• Print
• Share
• Larger Type

Faced with a $59 million price tag to comply with the state's class-size law, Superintendent Art Johnson took a wait-and-see approach, gambling that voters would approve a constitutional amendment to relax the rules.

But the voters didn't.

Now, the Palm Beach County School District is among the state's top class-size offenders. District officials face an estimated $16 million penalty and a variety of potentially unpopular choices to lower class sizes next year, including boundary changes, double sessions, cutting under-enrolled classes, even declaring popular schools or programs "closed."

Johnson defended his decision today . He said other school districts emptied their monetary reserves and cut classes to meet the stringent requirements this year, while Palm Beach County made "extraordinary efforts" to preserve academic programs and protect

The Oakland police chief’s middle school strategy | The Education Report

The Oakland police chief’s middle school strategy | The Education Report

The Oakland police chief’s middle school strategy

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 at 4:45 pm in community, crime, middle schools,violence
4 Comments »

Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts is in Washington, D.C. right now, lobbying the federal powers that be to give him $6 million for a pilot community policing program at four Oakland middle schools.

Batts’ plan is to hire 24 police officers and to assign them to four Oakland middle schools: Frick, Madison, Roosevelt and Westlake.

Officer Jeff Thomason, a public information officer for the police department, said four of the six officers at each school would provide security, and that two would serve as mentors and run the O.K. Program for gang and violence prevention.

“Basically, we want to start our community policing model at those schools,” Thomason said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Would you put your child in this school?

By Katy Murphy
Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 6:49 pm in achievement gap, teachers
4 Comments »

That’s the mantra in the Long Beach school district, according to a new McKinsey report that named the school district — and the Oakland-based charter management organization, Aspire Public Schools — among the 20 most-improved school systems in the world.

Long Beach is an ethnically diverse, high-poverty school district in a California port city, just like Oakland. Unlike Oakland, it’s had stable leadership for years, under a superintendent — in his ninth year — who once attended school in the district and later returned to be a teacher, principal and administrator.

If you have a chance to read McKinsey’s two-page case study on the Long Beach school district’s teacher preparation, training and coaching strategies, I’d love to hear how they compare to your experience in Oakland. It’s on pages 48-50 (linkhere).

Two things that caught my attention: Read the rest of this entry »

New D.C. teachers union chief says he'll be more aggressive

New D.C. teachers union chief says he'll be more aggressive

TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz Reprints COMMENT 0 Comments BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT You must be logged in to leave a comment.Log in | Register Why Do I Have to Log In Again? Discussion Policy

By Bill Turque

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; 10:56 PM

The new president of the Washington Teachers' Union said Wednesday that he would cooperate with D.C. school officials in implementing the labor contract he vehemently opposed last spring. But Nathan Saunders also said he would be far more aggressive than his predecessor in ensuring that teachers' voices are heard when policy gets made.

"Where the contract requires collaboration, I absolutely will collaborate. Collaboration didn't become a bad word when I got elected," said Saunders, in an interview shortly before his formal installation ceremony at the American Federation of Teachers office on Capitol Hill.

Saunders, the former union general vice president, unseated incumbent George Parker in a runoff election Tuesday after a campaign in which he said Parker had failed to take a hard enough line in

New Jersey Superintendent Salaries in Context « School Finance 101

New Jersey Superintendent Salaries in Context « School Finance 101

New Jersey Superintendent Salaries in Context

by schoolfinance101

These two figures provide some updated context to an earlier post on Arbitrary Pay Limits for NJ Administrators. The bombastic rhetoric on this topic refuses to die down. So, here are a few more figures to put NJ public school district administrator salaries into context. Note that these two figures compare THE TOP 20 SUPERINTENDENT SALARIES to salaries of a) the majority of private independent school headmasters statewide, and b) the average of a large number of NJ Hospital administrators (non-physician chief executives). Just a little more fodder for the conversation.

Figure 1

Mean and Median Compensation by Group

New overseer for charters urged | Thoughts on Public Education

New overseer for charters urged | Thoughts on Public Education

New overseer for charters urged

Share

State board too consumed by charter petitions

Posted on 12/02/10 • Categorized as Charters

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Charter schools have become a time sink for the State Board of Education, with a third of its time spent dealing with schools serving 5 percent of California’s students. Relieving that burden is one reason that the Little Hoover Commission, a state oversight body, is recommending that California establish an independent body to directly authorize and oversee charter schools.

A California Board of Charter Schools would not replace local districts and county offices of education, which are still the primary authorizers of charters, but it would offer an alternative path for charter applicants, and, under the Little Hoover Commission’s plan, it would have the ability to revoke the authorizing power of local districts that are either too lax in monitoring charters or discriminatory in keeping them out. The Little Hoover Commission heard

This Week In Education: Lobbying: Did USDE Leak Sharpton Criticism Of For-Profits?

This Week In Education: Lobbying: Did USDE Leak Sharpton Criticism Of For-Profits?

Leaders: Alonso's Smooth Approach To School Reform [image: image from t2.gstatic.com]Talking on the phone to Baltimore's Andres Alonso is like talking to Benecio Del Toro (if only Benny could carry a conversation about education reform). Alonso has that slow, calm, way of talking -- it sounds like ...

Lobbying: Did USDE Leak Sharpton Criticism Of For-Profits? [image: Flock of spoons_1000-thumb-600x450-37313] There's a kerfluffle surrounding Inside Higher Ed's coverage of the for-profit (Gainful Employment) debate that's no, not about substance, but rather about who said what to whom in emails. Lanny ...

AM News: Schools Prepare For Budget Pain [image: News2] More schools targeted to close in Hub Boston Globe: Boston School Superintendent Carol R. Johnson is expected to recommend tonight the closing or merging of more than a dozen schools, a proposal that goes further than one she ...

Normalizing Inadequacy - Ed Thoughts

Normalizing Inadequacy - Ed Thoughts

Normalizing Inadequacy - Ed Thoughts

by Sabrina

Recently, Education Secretary Arne Duncan set Reformy listeners' hearts aflutter when he declared that public schools need to adjust to "The New Normal" of lean budgets and sacrifice. It's clear that we're in really tough economic times, and I agree with Secretary Duncan that we should be thinking about ways to use educational funds more effectively (especially the bit about paring down central office costs...).

But there are two big oversights in this recent discussion of "doing more with less" that we really ought to address.

First of all, when times are tough, don't responsible adults make sure the basics are covered before they splurge on extras? If there are schools and districts in America that can't offer enough books to allow students to get their homework done, or pay all of their teachers, or offer a full curriculum, why did our government just award over $4 billion for experimental, unproven reforms? If my neighbor lost his job and risked homelessness because he had less money to pay rent, I'd be mighty confused if he went out and spent a bundle building himself a jet

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan keynotes Jeb Bush's ed reform conference

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan keynotes Jeb Bush's ed reform conference

Duncan keynotes Jeb Bush's ed reform conference

by Mike Klonsky

The sponsors tell the story

Arne Duncan has long been a favorite of the neocon wing of the Republican Party. He played a big role in pumping new life into a largely discredited Newt Gingrich when he made Gingrich the centerpiece of his road tour. Yesterday, Duncan, with the 2012 elections looming on the horizon, did his best to resuscitate the political corpse of Jeb Bush by keynoting the former Florida gov's 2-day so-called, National Summit on Education Reform in D.C.

According to WaPo's Valerie Strauss:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave the keynote speech today; the Republican Bush led a standing ovation for the Democratic Duncan, showing that school reform is, indeed, a bipartisan effort, if not a monolithic one.

The Orlando Sentinel's Mike Thomas writes:

Actually, this isn’t a shock. While Jeb has called President Obama a big spending liberal, and

Principals as Instructional Leaders–Again and Again | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Principals as Instructional Leaders–Again and Again | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Principals as Instructional Leaders–Again and Again

by larrycuban

Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. Everyone wants principals to be instructional leaders but no one wants to take away anything from the principals’ job.

Like superintendents and teachers, principals are expected to instruct, manage, and politick to be effective leaders. Because principals, like teachers and superintendents, have limited hours and energy (e.g., spending time with family, friends, sleep, exercise, reading–need I go on?), they face tensions over what they should choose to do each day. Thus, choices become compromises to ease tensions entangled in their teaching, managing, and politicking roles.

Most principals are passionate about being an instructional leader. Yet, they admit privately and in workshops I have led that they spend most of their time on managerial tasks. To be an instructional leader, however, principals must spend large chunks of their time in classrooms, working to both support and evaluate teachers. Current reform talk makes that choice even harder.

Calls for principals to be CEOs can be heard from superintendents, pundits, and others who couldn’t last a week