Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

PROBLEM: It is almost impossible to dismiss a poor teacher, principal or school administrator in New Jersey. The costs are enormous, and the legal hurdles difficult to meet. It is also impossible to reward good teachers.
SOLUTION:We will submit legislation that replaces lifetime tenure with five-year renewable performance based contracts, with merit pay opportunities, both for new hires and for teachers who do not currently hold tenure. If a teacher is not recommended to have his/her contract renewed, that teacher may appeal the school board decision. An arbitrator will be appointed to hear the case and the decision will be binding. We will seek to implement the same system for principals and school administrators.

Read the Indepth Policy on TENURE

PROBLEM:The high school graduation exam is an 8th grade level test. Furthermore, children who fail the test three times can get a diploma through a “back door” process called the Special Review Assessment (SRA).
SOLUTION:We will raise the standards of the graduation exam to standards that will equip our students to perform successfully in today’s society. We will eliminate the “back door” Special Review Assessment (SRA). An exception will be made only if a psychologist states in writing that a student is mentally or physically unable to take the test. A New Jersey high school diploma will finally be worth the paper it is written on.

Read the Indepth Policy on GRADUATION EXAMS

PROBLEM: Urban schools are failing to truly educate many of our poorest students, who have no choice about where to go to school.
SOLUTION: We will enact legislation creating a fund providing school choice for parents of urban children stuck in failing schools. All students should have alternatives that will enable them to attend schools that prepare them well for jobs and for opportunities in higher education. The Urban Enterprise Zone Jobs Scholarship Act proposed by the Black Ministers’ Council of New Jersey and the Latino Leadership Alliance will provide the basis for our legislation.

Read the Indepth Policy on SCHOOL CHOICE

PROBLEM:Some charter schools work well, but there are regulations that hamper charters.
SOLUTION:We will make charter schools more innovative and accountable and will provide the same operational and capital funding aid to charter schools as to conventional schools. We will encourage universities and businesses – not just the state Department of Education – to create charter schools.

Read the Indepth Policy on CHARTER SCHOOLS

PROBLEM:Schools haven’t fundamentally changed a great deal in the past 50 years. Except for technology, we haven’t tried to dramatically improve the classroom experience.
SOLUTION:We will challenge people to create schools that are truly “break the mold.” Schools that will receive funding do not exist now but will be the schools of the future.

Read the Indepth Policy on BREAKING THE MOLD

PROBLEM:Over 60 percent of current expense budgets are spent on teacher’s salaries and benefits; requiring the New Jersey taxpayers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year but we do not do a competent job of supervision and evaluation. We really don’t know what is going on in the classroom. There is no way to demonstrate to the taxpayer that we are fulfilling our obligations to our students and our citizens.
SOLUTION:The number of teachers has increased dramatically in the past 15 years while the number of supervisors has been relatively stable. We must know who the good teachers are, who needs help, and who should not continue to hold their jobs. We must supervise our teachers in a better, more fair and consistent way.

Read the Indepth Policy on SUPERVISION

PROBLEM:New Jersey teachers must accumulate 100 hours of professional development within a five year period to retain their jobs. To be kind, the system lacks substance; to be critical, it is a farce.
SOLUTION:We will do away with the present situation of “accumulating hours” as the cornerstone of professional development. Our focus is on performance in the classroom, not on keeping records of hours accumulated in training seminars. We intend to focus on outcomes, not simply inputs and process.

Read the Indepth Policy on PERFORMANCE

PROBLEM:Like most states, we have a difficult time recruiting outstanding teachers.
SOLUTION:Teachers are the critical variable in student learning. Buildings are important, so are books and laboratories. But, teachers are the key. Good teachers open children’s minds and fire their imaginations. With this in mind we will aggressively promote the Alternate Route to Teacher Certification. We also will open an Office for Teacher Recruitment, whose job will be to bring the best young teachers to New Jersey.

Read the Indepth Policy on TEACHER RECRUITMENT

Videos

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Tenure

While there are superb teachers in every school district in this state, there are teachers who are not performing. Parents know this, school boards know this, administrators know this, fellow teachers know this, and students know it most of all. But it is almost impossible to dismiss a teacher for non-performance. The costs are enormous, and the legal hurdles difficult to meet. It is no wonder that school boards do not challenge poor teachers. The result is that they remain at their posts year after year, collecting their paychecks as they fail to educate their students. We cannot afford to condemn our children to mediocre teaching or worse.

We will submit legislation that will end tenure and replace it with five-year performance based contracts, with merit pay opportunities, both for new hires and for those who have not yet received tenure. If a teacher does not meet the clear expectations of the school board and administration, his or her contract will not be renewed. In order to meet clear expectations the school board and administration must have standards in place that have been submitted to the board by a joint committee of teachers, supervisors, administrators and parents (see Supervision below). We envision a system that would include significant observation of a teacher who is not succeeding. For example under our legislation, a potentially failing teacher would be observed at least four times in a prior year and tentatively recommended for non-renewal. The teacher must be given assistance in the ensuing year to improve, and again, must be observed at least four times. If the recommendation for non-renewal is made after the fifth year by the administration and accepted by the board, the teacher may appeal the board’s decision to an arbitrator, whose decision will be made in a short, defined timeframe and will be binding.

Our schools – and our students — deserve the best teachers possible. We must recruit the best, and we must recognize and magnify the abilities of our outstanding teachers. But we must not sweep under the rug the fact that we have some teachers who are not performing. These teachers must be given every chance to improve. But if they don’t, they must be removed from the profession.

Similarly, our students – and our teachers – deserve the best principals and administrators. We will submit similar legislation calling for five-year renewable contracts for new principals and administrators.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Graduation Exams

New Jersey must have an educated work force with young men and women who can handle the demands of our technological age. For years, New Jersey has claimed to have the highest graduation rate in the nation. This is an absurd claim.

Students in New Jersey high schools are required to pass the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) in order to earn a diploma. According to Commissioner of Education, Lucille Davy, the HSPA is an eighth grade level test. A score of 47 percent is required to pass the language section and 50 percent to pass the mathematics section, scores that would be considered failing in most testing scales.

If students fail the HSPA three times, they are eligible to have an alternative assessment conducted, the Special Review Assessment (SRA). Initially, the SRA was meant only for children with severe learning problems that prevented them from taking and passing the regular timed test. It was never meant for everyone who failed the HSPA.

But, over time, the SRA was weakened until almost every child that failed the graduation test three times was given the opportunity to take the SRA. In fact, according to Rev. Reginald Jackson of the Black Ministers’ Council in testimony he gave before the State Board of Education in April, nearly 20 percent of New Jersey students receive their diploma through the SRA. If we subtract the children who are given this back door diploma, New Jersey ranks in the mid-range of the United States graduation rate, not first.

We need a test that means something. If a child does not have a severe physical or mental problem he or she should have to pass the graduation test to get a diploma. To avoid the test, a psychologist must state, in writing, why a child has a physical or mental situation that prevents him or her from taking the test. The Daggett Administration will direct the Commissioner of Education to set up a team to review all recommendations submitted by psychologists. A very tough approach to exceptions, with no loopholes, will be taken.

There will be no “back door,” no telling children they have skills when they do not. We cannot pass children on to college or into the work force, saying they have skills that they do not have. This subterfuge must end.

If a student cannot pass the test, he or she will not get a New Jersey high school diploma. Right now children know how the system works; if you don’t work hard, and fail, you still get your diploma. This is not the message we want to be giving our children or employers. It is not just educationally corrupt, it is morally corrupt. It shortchanges our children and simply postpones the day of reckoning when they are unable to do college work or get a job. We need to make a New Jersey high school diploma worth the paper it is written on.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

School Choice

We must give students in failing school systems – like their more affluent suburban counterparts – a choice to attend schools that prepare them well for jobs and for opportunities in higher education. It is immoral to condemn yet another generation of students to remain in failing schools when other options exist.

We will enact legislation to create a scholarship fund along the lines proposed by the Black Ministers’ Council of New Jersey and the Latino Leadership Alliance to pay tuition for up to 15,000 children in ten pilot districts – including New Jersey’s four largest cities – to attend other public or non-public schools. The proposed legislation would create a five-year pilot program in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Camden, Trenton, Lakewood, Perth Amboy, Passaic and Orange.

The current bill envisions scholarships averaging $6,328 for pupils in grades K-8 and $9,333 for grades 9-12 – amounts that represent significantly less than the $15,819 average per pupil cost in the 2006-2007 school year that the Office of Legislative Services used as its benchmark. If evenly divided between K-8 and 9-12 grade students, the program would provide scholarships to 3,144 students in the first year, 6,287 in the second, 9,431 in the third, 12,575 in the fourth, and 15,718 in the final year.

Funding for this program would come from the New Jersey corporate income tax. Businesses paying that tax would receive tax credits equal to the amount dedicated to the program. The program would start at $24 million in the first year, and rise by that amount each year to a fifth-year total of $120 million. The bill’s fiscal note as currently written does not envision a reduction in school aid to the ten pilot school districts. To continue to pay $15,819 a year in state tax dollars to school districts for children they are no longer educating violates the spirit and intent of the 2008 School Funding Reform Act, which was designed to have school aid follow the child. We would seek an amendment to the legislation explicitly stating that aid to the pilot districts would be reduced by the amount of the scholarship provided (recognizing that school districts do not save on a dollar-for-dollar basis when a single student or a dozen students leave). This would make the program revenue-neutral for the state. We would be prepared to argue the case that we should not pay twice for students – once at the school they leave and once again at the new school they enter.

If this pilot program proves as successful, as we believe it will, we will seek to extend it to other under performing school districts. This program, coupled with the expansion of charter school initiatives described below, will offer students in failing school districts a range of options to reach their full potential.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Charter Schools

Charter schools were born out of a failure of many public schools to educate children. Some are succeeding and are excellent, while others are not fulfilling the requirements of their charter. Charter schools get no capital funds and are put through an onerous set of hurdles to justify their existence. To make things even more difficult, the present governor’s new budget cut the charter schools program by another 15percent.

The hunger for alternatives is nowhere more evident than in the annual lottery for placement in charter schools. Parents leave in tears when they realize their children lost out in the luck of the draw and will be trapped for at least another year in schools that do not meet their needs.

North Star Academy and Robert Treat Academy charter schools in Newark are among the best known in the nation. We should understand the nature and details of their success, then replicate them in other charter schools and in urban public schools across the state.

Charter schools should be innovative and challenging enterprises and they must be accountable to the same degree as our public schools. At the same time, the funding of charters with respect to capital projects and per pupil spending must be comparable to the public schools. New charter schools should receive state funding in a more timely manner in order to prevent the need for bridge loans in order to open for the school year.

We should explore whether or not to empower universities and the business community to create charter schools. We should also allow charter schools to enlarge their enrollments and we should promote the unused provision of the charter school law that allows for conversion of existing public schools to charter schools.

Charter schools can be an option for children who do not succeed in their public schools.
The competition they provide can help children both in the charter schools and in the public schools that will have to compete for students.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Breaking The Mold

Most of our schools haven’t changed much in the last 50 years, with the exception of technology, which pervades all of our lives. In this time span the world has seen many major leaps forward: from prop planes to jets; people walking on the earth to people walking on the moon; the introduction of computers and words such as “google” and “facebook” that are part of our everyday life.

We need similar major breakthroughs in the schools. We need major changes that will challenge both students and teachers. We can do better and we must do better.

It is vitally important to challenge our finest educational minds to create schools that are truly “break the mold.” The Daggett Administration will challenge people to dream and take that dream into a practical reality. We need to create schools that do not exist now, but should be the schools of the future. Our plan is to seek and reward innovative ideas in education. These new ideas will require proposals that state what people want to do, why it should be done, how they will execute their plan and what it will cost.

If selected, the winning proposals will be given a planning grant of one million dollars. If progress is as stated, another one million dollars will be provided in the second year to get the idea implemented.

We would give up to 10 grants the first year, if there are 10 worthy “break the mold” ideas.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Supervision

Most of the cost of education is the salaries/benefits of the teachers in the classroom. Approximately 60 percent of every current expense budget is for teacher salaries and benefits. Yet, supervision of instruction is often uneven at best, and the frequency of supervisors observing/evaluating teachers working with children is minimal.

Administrators and supervisors must spend more of their time supervising and evaluating teachers in the classroom. We must know the teachers who are doing an outstanding job, praise them and magnify their influence; we must know teachers who would be excellent if weaknesses are specifically addressed; and we must remove teachers who are not performing, after weaknesses are determined and help provided.

The Daggett Administration will convene a panel of outstanding teachers, professors, administrators, and parents to determine the standards that make outstanding teachers. Once this is accomplished, the best models in the country will be determined, based on these criteria. Each school district will choose one of these tested models for their district schools. If a school district thinks they have an approach that is as good as or better than the models selected, the same panel will determine if an exception will be made.

Once the teachers, administrators and board of a district select their approach to determining what good teaching is, we will require that a supervisor of instruction be identified for every 100 teachers. It will be this person’s job to spend half of his or her time observing, evaluating and conferencing with classroom teachers. The other part of the supervisor’s time will be spent working with other supervisors and administrators so there is excellence in observation/evaluation of teaching and consistency from school to school and administrator to administrator.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Performance

New Jersey teachers must participate in 100 hours of professional development within a five-year period to stay current in their jobs. To be kind, the system lacks substance; to be critical, it is a farce. If teachers attend school “in service days” for six hours three times a year, they accumulate 18 hours. Just by attending these mandatory days for five years they can accumulate 90 hours. If they take one graduate course in five years they may record another 34 hours. If they “mentor” a younger teacher and spend 50 hours in a year as a mentor, that counts too. There is little or no link between the hours teachers accumulate and their performance in the classroom. The total emphasis is on recording 100 hours in five years. There is no pretense that what is recorded has anything to do with performance.

The present system has a total emphasis on inputs and process and none on outcomes. The situation is absolutely backwards. A teacher, meeting with his or her supervisors, should determine what resources are needed to better teach, so that students will benefit. They shouldn’t have to participate in the charade that exists now.

Advancement on the salary guide will be measured by performance in the classroom and performance only. Teachers who perform well will be advanced; those who do not will not receive salary increases. The current system makes a mockery of “professional development”, rewards “hours recorded”, and has little to do with competence and increased performance.

We will no longer pay for “hours” or because someone is a year older. Just because a teacher has another birthday is not sufficient reason to make more money. Teachers will have to make more money the old fashioned way, by earning it.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video

Office of Teacher Recruitment

Supervision, tenure and performance policies deal with teachers already in the system. In New Jersey we have the Alternate Route to teacher certification which allows our schools to recruit prospective teachers from the finest colleges and universities, if they so choose. But, these young men and women may not know that they can become teachers in New Jersey without going to a “teacher’s university.” We intend to promote this program much more aggressively.

We are all in competition for outstanding people, and schools are no different. Teaching competence is the key to children’s learning and very bright people who love children are in demand. We can reach those people by opening an Office for Teacher Recruitment. Staffed by no more than four people we can and will comb the Northeast from Massachusetts to Maryland talking to students at our very best institutions of higher education. When these young men and women show interest in teaching we will link them with schools that have openings in their field of study.

Some of our best Alternate Route teachers come from the ranks of business executives, scientists and other professionals who decide to make mid-career changes. We should provide a similar Alternate Route for former executives and other professionals to become superintendents, principals and administrators.

Tenure, Graduation Exams, School Choice, Charter Schools, Break The Mold Schools, Supervision, Performance , Office of Teacher Recruitment, Daggett Video