Fine Print: Sen. Ruiz’s New Teacher Tenure Bill

Synopsis: The bill (S-1455) is the latest working version of a measure to revise teacher tenure and evaluation in New Jersey.

Primary Sponsor: State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex)

What it does: The new proposed Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act makes key changes in Ruiz’s original bill filed last year. It tightens some provisions on how evaluations would be conducted and by whom; adds requirements for helping all teachers; and more closely aligns other provisions with changes sought by Gov. Chris Christie.

What it means: Ruiz has spent the better part of six months meeting with stakeholders to come up with a final bill that she contended would draw the widest possible support. Even before the revision, the bill was given pretty good odds of passing, with support from the Christie administration and some of the Democratic leadership, including Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Burlington). It has yet to be seen whether that will be enough.

New intro:

• a. The goal of this legislation is to raise student achievement by improving instruction through the adoption of evaluations that provide specific feedback to educators, inform the provision of aligned professional development, and inform personnel decisions.

• b. The New Jersey Supreme Court has found that a multitude of factors play a vital role in the quality of a child’s education, including effectiveness in teaching methods and evaluations. Changing the current evaluation system to focus on improved student outcomes, including objective measures of student growth, is critical to improving teacher effectiveness, raising student achievement, and meeting the objectives of the federal "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."

Four categories of teachers: One change is simple but could become the new nomenclature in New Jersey. Teachers will be assigned to one of four categories each year: highly effective, effective, partially effective, and ineffective. Those tags will come through annual evaluations that look at both classroom practice and the extent that students progress in a particular class. Ruiz previously had just two categories, effective and ineffective, and now follows the tiers proposed by a task force convened by Christie last year.

Who’s in, who’s out: Ruiz's latest bill remains largely unchanged in that teachers would receive tenure after three years of “effective” or “highly effective” evaluations by a panel of teachers and administrators in each school. In one tweak, the three years would not start until after the first year of teaching, effectively requiring four years to receive tenure. The current law requires three years and a day. Under the bill, a teacher would lose tenure after one year of “ineffective” or “partially effective” evaluations and a second year that did not show improvement. The revocation of tenure would not be appealable except on grounds that proper procedure was not followed.

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