A new report by the not-for-profit, non-partisan National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) finds that New Jersey's teacher policies largely work against the nation's goal of improving teacher quality. While the national focus on teacher quality has never been greater, the broad range of state laws, rules and regulations that govern the teaching profession too often impede rather than promote serious reform.
NCTQ's 2009 State Teacher Policy Yearbook examined state policy across five areas that include teacher preparation, evaluation, tenure and dismissal, alternative certification and compensation. New Jersey earned the following grades, resulting in an overall grade of D+:
• Delivering Well Prepared Teachers: D
• Expanding the Teaching Pool: B-
• Identifying Effective New Teachers: D+
• Retaining Effective New Teachers: C-
• Exiting Ineffective New Teachers: D+
NCTQ President Kate Walsh said, "The release of the 2009 Yearbook comes at a particularly opportune time. Race to the Top, the $4.5 billion federal discretionary grant competition, has put unprecedented focus on education reform in general, and teacher quality in particular. We believe that the Yearbook provides a road map for achieving a Race to the Top grant, identifying where states are on the right track and where they have considerable work to do.
Walsh continued: “Unfortunately, states have tremendous ground to make up after years of policy neglect. There is much more New Jersey can do to ensure that all children have the effective teachers they deserve."
Among the findings about New Jersey:
• New Jersey's tenure policies do not consider what should count the most about teacher performance: classroom effectiveness. It does not require that districts collect or consider any evidence of teacher effectiveness as part of tenure decisions.
• New Jersey makes it too difficult for districts to attempt to dismiss poor performers by failing to articulate a policy for dismissing teachers for poor performance separate from dismissal policies for criminal and morality violations. It appears that New Jersey also allows multiple appeals of dismissals.
• New Jersey's requirements for the preparation of elementary teachers do not ensure these teachers are well prepared to teach reading or mathematics.
• New Jersey sets low expectations for what special education teachers should know, despite state and federal expectations that special education students should meet the same high standards as other students.
• New Jersey fails to exercise appropriate oversight of its teacher preparation programs. The state allows programs to admit candidates without passing a basic skills test. It also could do more to hold programs accountable for the quality of the teachers they produce.
• New Jersey's pay and benefit policies for teachers—including the state-run retirement system—offer inadequate incentives to stay in teaching. The financial sustainability of the retirement system is also uncertain, based on the state's own report.
Despite these findings, New Jersey has some bright spots, including a streamlined alternate route to certification that meets the immediate needs of new teachers.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
New Jersey Department of Education Releases 2009 School Report Cards
The New Jersey Department of Education today released the 2009 School Report Cards for all regular public schools and charter schools in the state. The report cards are public accountability documents that are intended to enable members of the public to measure the yearly progress of their local schools.
The annual reports contain detailed statistical profiles of every school in the areas of school environment, student information, student performance indicators, staff information and district and charter financial information.
Established by legislation in 1995, the report cards are produced for all elementary and secondary schools, as well as vocational schools, special education schools, charter schools, and special services school districts.
The school report card is accessible on the DOE Web site at http://education.state.nj.us/rc/
In addition to being a resource for community members to check the progress of their schools, the report card contains state-level information that is helpful in providing an overview of education in New Jersey.
The report cards released today are the 15th to be produced under the 1995 state law that specifies much of the information to be reported and requires its annual distribution. They also represent the 19th time New Jersey has issued a report on its public schools, since the first report cards were distributed in 1989.
Some items of note in the 2009 report card:
* The major addition to the report card in 2009 was mandated by the US Department of Education. States were required to report 2007 state and national results in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for grades four and eight and the 2009 NAEP math results for grades four and eight. For comparative purposes, the NAEP results are in the same section of the report card as the fourth and eighth grade NJ ASK state totals for grades four and eight. Information about New Jersey’s performance on NAEP can be found at http://www.nj.gov/education/assessment/naep/
* The criterion for the student/computer ratio changed this year. Formerly, districts could report any computer in the building that was still being used for some instructional purpose. This year’s count was to include only instructional, multimedia-capable computers that have manufacture dates after July1, 2005 and that are available for supervised instruction. Very old computers are limited in their ability to prepare students to use 21st century tools.
* State assessment for grades 3-4 show only one year of results because they are new tests. The changes to the tests for grades three and four complete the realignment of the state tests with the updated academic standards. In the second year of the new tests for grades 5-8 that were administered for the first time in 2008, overall the test results showed improvement across the board. The biggest gains in language arts were in grade 5 from 60.1% proficient in 2007-08 to 66.2% in 2008-09 and grade 6 with 57.4% proficient in 2007-08 to 70.1% proficient in 2008-09. The biggest gain in math was in grade 8 from 67.7% proficient in 2007-08 to 71.8% in 2008-09.
* Graduates via SRA (the alternate proficiency assessment for the HSPA) declined slightly for a third year, from 11.2% in 2006-07 to 11.0% in 2007-08 to 10.9% in 2008-09.
* Students identified as limited English proficient (LEP) showed a dip in 2007-08 but are back at 2006-07 levels for 2008-09.
2006-07 54,258 LEP students or 3.9%
2007-08 51,824 or 3.7%
2008-09 54,282 or 3.9%.
* The faculty mobility rate has dropped from 6.2% in 2006-07 to 5.7% in 2007-08 and 4% in 2008-09.
* The student expulsions have fallen from 78 in 2005-06 to 76 in 2006-07 to 66 in 2007-08 and to 35 in 2008-09.
* The top six languages spoken at home have some percentage changes in the top six:
2007-08 2008-09
English 77.6% 78.2%
Spanish 10.8% 10.0%
Korean .6% .4%
Portuguese .5% .2%
Mandarin .4% .1%
Arabic .5% replaced by Polish at .1%
* The intended post graduate plans for students has shown a slight drop in the four-year college category and in the employment category:
2007-08 2008-09
4-yr. college 54.0% 52.6%
2-yr. college 31.0% 31.5%
Oth. post secondary 3.3% 4.7%
Military 1.4% .4%
Apprenticeship .2% .2%
Employment 6.3% 5.8%
The annual reports contain detailed statistical profiles of every school in the areas of school environment, student information, student performance indicators, staff information and district and charter financial information.
Established by legislation in 1995, the report cards are produced for all elementary and secondary schools, as well as vocational schools, special education schools, charter schools, and special services school districts.
The school report card is accessible on the DOE Web site at http://education.state.nj.us/rc/
In addition to being a resource for community members to check the progress of their schools, the report card contains state-level information that is helpful in providing an overview of education in New Jersey.
The report cards released today are the 15th to be produced under the 1995 state law that specifies much of the information to be reported and requires its annual distribution. They also represent the 19th time New Jersey has issued a report on its public schools, since the first report cards were distributed in 1989.
Some items of note in the 2009 report card:
* The major addition to the report card in 2009 was mandated by the US Department of Education. States were required to report 2007 state and national results in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for grades four and eight and the 2009 NAEP math results for grades four and eight. For comparative purposes, the NAEP results are in the same section of the report card as the fourth and eighth grade NJ ASK state totals for grades four and eight. Information about New Jersey’s performance on NAEP can be found at http://www.nj.gov/education/assessment/naep/
* The criterion for the student/computer ratio changed this year. Formerly, districts could report any computer in the building that was still being used for some instructional purpose. This year’s count was to include only instructional, multimedia-capable computers that have manufacture dates after July1, 2005 and that are available for supervised instruction. Very old computers are limited in their ability to prepare students to use 21st century tools.
* State assessment for grades 3-4 show only one year of results because they are new tests. The changes to the tests for grades three and four complete the realignment of the state tests with the updated academic standards. In the second year of the new tests for grades 5-8 that were administered for the first time in 2008, overall the test results showed improvement across the board. The biggest gains in language arts were in grade 5 from 60.1% proficient in 2007-08 to 66.2% in 2008-09 and grade 6 with 57.4% proficient in 2007-08 to 70.1% proficient in 2008-09. The biggest gain in math was in grade 8 from 67.7% proficient in 2007-08 to 71.8% in 2008-09.
* Graduates via SRA (the alternate proficiency assessment for the HSPA) declined slightly for a third year, from 11.2% in 2006-07 to 11.0% in 2007-08 to 10.9% in 2008-09.
* Students identified as limited English proficient (LEP) showed a dip in 2007-08 but are back at 2006-07 levels for 2008-09.
2006-07 54,258 LEP students or 3.9%
2007-08 51,824 or 3.7%
2008-09 54,282 or 3.9%.
* The faculty mobility rate has dropped from 6.2% in 2006-07 to 5.7% in 2007-08 and 4% in 2008-09.
* The student expulsions have fallen from 78 in 2005-06 to 76 in 2006-07 to 66 in 2007-08 and to 35 in 2008-09.
* The top six languages spoken at home have some percentage changes in the top six:
2007-08 2008-09
English 77.6% 78.2%
Spanish 10.8% 10.0%
Korean .6% .4%
Portuguese .5% .2%
Mandarin .4% .1%
Arabic .5% replaced by Polish at .1%
* The intended post graduate plans for students has shown a slight drop in the four-year college category and in the employment category:
2007-08 2008-09
4-yr. college 54.0% 52.6%
2-yr. college 31.0% 31.5%
Oth. post secondary 3.3% 4.7%
Military 1.4% .4%
Apprenticeship .2% .2%
Employment 6.3% 5.8%
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