Schools

Education Department Extends Teacher Evaluation Pilot to as Many as 30 More Districts

New plans give the rest of the districts more time to revamp how they judge teachers.

New Jersey's teacher evaluation pilot has gotten off to a mixed start, by most accounts. Now the Christie administration is tweaking its plans for next year and extending the pilot to a limited number of districts -- rather than statewide as originally planned.

In a memo distributed Wednesday, acting education commissioner Chris Cerf said that up to 30 more districts would be chosen to test a teacher evaluation system that uses student performance, among other criteria, as a measure of teacher effectiveness.

Ten districts, plus a half-dozen schools in Newark, are participating in the pilot this year.

Find out what's happening in South Brunswickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But the rules for the remaining 500-plus districts have eased some; earlier statements said that every district would implement a new evaluation system in at least one school.

Instead, each district will only have to begin building and testing an evaluation framework that breaks teachers into four categories of effectiveness, from "ineffective" to "highly effective." They will not have to implement it in a school.

Find out what's happening in South Brunswickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Schools will also be required to set up a local advisory committee, to train teachers and administrators on the new system, and to report on their progress in January and July 2013.

Justin Barra, the education department's communications director, said yesterday that the new guidelines follow the intentions spelled out in the state's application for a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but provide more details for districts.

He said the goal remains to have a teacher evaluation system in place statewide by 2013-2014.

"We're not at all slowing down, we're just providing districts more specificity," said Barra.

The new guidance comes out as the state legislature is gearing up to debate exactly how the new evaluation system will be reflected in the law and play out in teacher tenure decisions.

A prominent bill sponsored by state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the Senate Education Committee Chairman, would revamp New Jersey's century-old tenure system. Among its many provisions, it would require teachers receive three consecutive years of positive evaluations to be awarded tenure. Two substandard reviews could cost them their protection. Ruiz has said the first hearings on the bill could start this month.

Teacher union leaders learned about the new guidance yesterday, and some of their representatives were in on a late-afternoon conference call with top department officials explaining the changes.

"We're glad they've listened to those on the local committees who said this is being rushed and no way it can be done in just a year," said Rosemary Knab, an associate director with the New Jersey Education Association who was in on the call.

Continue reading this story in NJ Spotlight.

NJ Spotlight is an online news service providing insight and information on issues critical to New Jersey.


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