Driving the Teacher Quality Component for Education Reform
Assistant State Commissioner Peter Shulman brings experience and expertise to his latest post.
The man in charge of New Jersey’s latest effort to improve teacher quality easily uses terms like “human capital continuum,” “skill sets,” and “gap analysis.”
Peter Shulman, the new assistant state commissioner and chief talent officer, is a very much a systems guy. That's hardly surprising for someone not that long from getting an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Yet Shulman’s education and experience belie his 36 years. While he never taught in a classroom, he has held administrative stints in the Miami-Dade public schools and headed up the teacher quality push for Delaware’s education department, a forerunner in the education reform world. Shulman also holds a master's in education from Penn.
Now just a month on the job in Trenton, Shulman will need all those credentials and experience in leading the teacher quality component of Gov. Chris Christie’s and acting commissioner Chris Cerf’s education reform policy.
Job No. 1: the pilot program now underway in 10 districts to reform teacher evaluation statewide. The districts are each testing evaluation models that will more directly tie teacher performance with their students’ performance, including on state tests. It is the centerpiece of Christie’s plans to scale back and redefine teacher tenure.
But that’s just part of his job. Shulman will also leads the state offices that oversee teacher education, certification, professional development, and retention, each tricky topics in themselves.
And in talking with him recently, his business school vocabulary came into play to describe how these issues are all related: “None of these operate in a vacuum, but in a human capital continuum,” he said..
Shulman spoke at length as to how has seen all these issues play out before in his years in Miami, as its director of teacher recruitment, and then in Delaware, one of the first two winners of the federal Race to the Top competition, which has been a big impetus for refining teacher evaluation and tenure nationwide.
His charge in Delaware was to implement the educator piece of its Race to the Top plan, including evaluation and other areas. “It was everything from principal leadership to new teacher pipelines to data-driven professional learning communities,” he said.
Cerf said he hired Shulman for that experience and for his energy in trying to tackle these issues as one.
"Peter is a seasoned executive who combines both intensive public sector experience and strong analytic training,” Cerf said in an email yesterday. “In Delaware, a Race to the Top winner, he led one of the nation's leading human capital reform efforts.
“I am delighted that he has brought his experience and skills to the much larger arena of New Jersey," Cerf wrote.
This is the second top staff member that Cerf has brought from Delaware, the first being project management director James Palmer. Shulman -- like Cerf -- is also an alumnus of the Broad Foundation’s education network, a large class of reform-minded education officials spanning the country.
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morrigan
5:14 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
Peter Shulman has a lot going against him.
First of all, anyone connected with the Broad Foundation (including Cerf!) is going to have to prove that he is not part of the corporatist cabal that is making an effort to destroy public education in the United States. Among other things, that group promotes corporate charter schools, siphoning public funds into their pockets. We'll have to see if he is of the same mindset.
Second of all, "improving teacher quality" should not be the job of a person who has never been in the classroom. As a matter of fact, NO educational administrator should be without extensive classroom experience. He/she must know whereof he/she speaks. If Mr. Shulman's masters degree in education allows him to teach, he should spend at least three years in the classroom -- full time -- before he presumes to make judgments on the people who are doing that job.
And finally -- most of what is wrong with education right now is a direct result of the bad implementation of No Child Left Behind. Teachers are the first people they need to talk to. Experienced teachers can tell them precisely which provisions have helped -- and which provisions have made things much, much worse.
Despite all of this, a recent survey showed that while most Americans seem to have bought into this "crisis in education" talk, when asked about THEIR schools and THEIR teachers, they say they are quite happy with the education their children are receiving! (Think about that.)
Joe R
9:50 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
Peter Shulman was hand picked by Cerf, that's all you need to know. It will mean more charter schools, privately run schools getting tax payer money. Over all and on average, charter schools do no better than the traditional public schools and there are more terrible charter schools than there are good ones. Lots of billionaires and hedge fund managers are pushing for charter schools and the privatization of our public schools. It's a toxic formula for the destruction of public education in the US.
Winston
7:45 am on Monday, January 16, 2012
JoeR lets be fair ...
Billionaires and hedge fund managers versus union bosses and the supporters of "politics over children".
morrigan
11:18 am on Monday, January 16, 2012
Winston, who supports "politics over children?"
Chris Christie and his henchmen are looking at politics. They are looking to siphon public money (our taxes) into the pockets the corporatists (the "billionaires and hedge fund managers") who are trying to get into the 'education market' for that money.
The people who teach in public schools put the children they work with first -- above politics, above convenience, sometimes even above their own needs for personal time and personal space. NJEA is made up of those people.
So who are you talking about?
Winston
12:57 pm on Monday, January 16, 2012
The NJEA is nothing but a bunch of thugs! They dont care about managing our tax dollars or improving performance...
Winston
1:13 pm on Monday, January 16, 2012
Proof that the NJEA and NEA dont care about taxes or American Education! Here is some of the legislation they are pouring millions of dollars into...
Mandatory full-day kindergarten attendance for all children,
Repeal of the right-to-work provision of federal labor law
A tax-supported, single-payer health care plan for all residents of the U.S., its territories, and Puerto Rico
Federal funding for the education of illegal aliens
Federal programs to teach schoolchildren about different sexual orientations
Affirmative action to redress historical patterns of discrimination
Legislation to study possible reparations to African Americans to address residual effects of slavery
Opposition to tuition tax credits, vouchers, and parental option or "choice" in education programs
Opposition to denying student aid to illegal alien college students
Opposition to using draft registration as an eligibility criterion for financial aid
Opposition to the testing of teachers as a criterion for job retention, promotion, tenure, or salary increases
Opposition to legislation that denies illegal aliens' access to public schools
Opposition to designating English as the official language of the United States
Opposition to the use of voter ID cards for voting in local, state, and national elections
Opposition to any constitutional amendment limiting taxes or the federal budget
morrigan
4:11 pm on Monday, January 16, 2012
Wow, Winston -- you did well.
Except that those provisions prove that NJEA and NEA care deeply about the education of children in this country.
Every single one of those policies -- if they became legislation -- would support American democracy and strengthen not only education but the well-being of the American people and our economy as well.
You know, pretty much all members of NJEA pay NJ taxes. And all NJEA and NEA members pay federal taxes. NJEA and NEA are fighting for excellent education for all American children. That's the best use of our tax dollars that I can think of.
They are also trying to do some damage control. You talk about "performance." NJ's public schools have been among the best in the country for a long time. No Child Left Behind has done much damage to the quality of education most US public schools are providing, with ridiculous demands and severe punishments for not meeting those demands. Still, New Jersey's public schools are among the best.
The positions you attribute above to NJEA and NEA will thwart the cancerous growth of the capitalist cabal that is threatening to overwhelm us with their Chicago School economics. They have already been imported into other countries, with disastrous results for the average citizens of those countries. Americans would be foolish to let them have their way here.
Winston
10:24 pm on Monday, January 16, 2012
Morrigan....read the facts the are not "fighting for excellent education for all American children" they are fighting for more money, less work and no accountability.
morrigan
12:03 am on Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Where do you see "more money, less work and no accountability" in your list of the things they are supporting?
Patrick
6:43 am on Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Morrigan... Its right there in No child left behind, where they no longer have to teach critical thinking, just a test, and the fact they reach into their own pocket to to tune of $1000 a year for school supplies... Yes the evil members of society, the teachers.
as for the UNION... you get laid off from a district. you keep your insurance, not for a huge fee like Cobra, but at your original rate... you get sick, you don't lose your house,
Winston just cuts and pastes Christie and conservative blogs and never actually considers what he's saying. and when you press him to he just says your attacking ME. and then will paste a list he finds off new republic.
morrigan
10:42 am on Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Oh -- OK Patrick. That list Winston put up here was quite impressive -- I like the NJEA and NEA agenda as posted!
I think that the abandonment of teaching critical thinking is an unintended (for the most part) consequence of NCLB. It is an effect of bad implementation of a flawed piece of legislation. Over the course of this past decade, the teaching of higher level thinking skills has been forced to take a back seat to teaching for high test scores.
Any thoughtful teacher back in 2000 could have told them that was going to happen. But so many people think that because they went to school themselves, they know all about teaching and learning. Diane Ravitch, a historian and one of the people who originally supported NCLB, wrote a courageous book explaining that she had been wrong and why. (The Death and Life of the Great American School System.)
I am not sure about what you said about the union. I've known people who were laid off, but we never talked about insurance. I was under the impression, though, that being laid off meant a cessation of benefits.
Same thing about being sick -- once you used up your sick days, I am not sure what happened. There used to be insurance available that you could purchase -- at cost to you -- that was designed to deal with such circumstances.
NOBODY -- teachers or anyone else -- should have to lose their insurance -- or their home -- if they get sick or if they lose their jobs!