Saturday, May 4, 2013
Christie cites families, wife -- and Jon Bon Jovi -- in explaining new position on ‘Good Samaritan’ bill.
From a governor who rarely changes course after stating his views on a bill, Chris Christie’s decision to sign a measure granting immunity to those who aid drug overdose victims was nearly unprecedented. It took dogged lobbying from the families of residents who died from overdoses, as well as urging from New Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie, for the governor to embrace the “Good Samaritan” bill. The effort also received an assist from celebrity rocker Jon Bon Jovi, whose daughter survived an overdose. The bill (S-2082) protects both overdose victims and those who are with them from arrest for drug possession. It also offers immunity to those who administer an opioid overdose antidote, naloxone. Christie had issued a conditional veto of…
Friday, May 3, 2013
Administration shaves test score component of teacher evaluations by 5 percent.
After an extraordinary amount of public comment and some high-level meetings, the Christie administration has hedged on its plans to use test scores to evaluate teachers -- but not by much. State Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and his staff Wednesday presented revisions to the new teacher evaluation code before the State Board of Education that would slightly lessen the weight that test scores would have in a teacher’s annual evaluation. After first proposing that scores would amount to 35 percent of a performance evaluation for math and language arts teachers in grades 4-8, Cerf yesterday said that total would be trimmed to 30 percent for next year. In addition, he said only the scores of students who had been enrolled with a given …
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Rebuffed by Legislature, Christie goes for major regulatory changes through Civil Service Commission.
Tired of waiting for the Democratic-controlled Legislature to send him a new civil service bill to replace the one he vetoed two years ago, Gov. Chris Christie is pushing sweeping changes through a Civil Service Commission he effectively controls. Christie’s civil service overhaul is the latest in a series of high-profile battles with public employee unions that have defined his governorship and propelled him to national prominence. These have ranged from school vouchers and merit pay for teachers to a landmark pension and health benefits bill that not only forced public employees to pay more, but also eliminated the right of unions to bargain on health benefits for four years. The Christie administration's proposed civil service …
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Good news, not bad, plays well with voters in election year, according to political scientists.
New Jersey faces a major long-term fiscal crisis that it should deal with now, but don't look for political leaders from either party to even talk about the problem seriously until at least 2017, political scientists agree. "There's the reality of the numbers and the reality of the political situation," said Ben Dworkin, director of Rider University's Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. "The numbers are daunting. Even after the recent reforms, we are still talking about tens of billions of dollars needed for pension and retiree health benefits." But candidates know that "the more optimistic you are, the more likely you are to win," Dworkin said. "That's why we're far more likely to do nothing than something in the near future." …
Friday, April 26, 2013
New Jersey’s leaders should make investments in proven ways to grow the economy instead of continuing to focus on reducing taxes.
By Gordon MacInnes [Gordon MacInnes is president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1997 to conduct research and analysis on crucial issues facing New Jersey.] Efforts to cut taxes died last year at the hands of lousy revenue collections and New Jersey’s slow crawl out of the recession, both of which made it apparent we need more resources to meet our needs, not fewer. But like a zombie, the tax cuts are back on center stage in Trenton. Like last time around, they are the wrong prescription for our ailing economy and won’t deliver the jobs that New Jersey needs. First comes the “invisible” tax cut in the upcoming year, followed by a phased-in “real” tax cut over the next three years. Gov. …
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Even with backing of both teachers unions, Buono faces challenge to articulate how she differs from Christie.
It's taken a while, but Gov. Chris Christie’s aggressive school reform agenda -- and the Democrats’ counter to it -- could be emerging as a big issue in the 2013 gubernatorial election. Christie’s very public involvement in the public schools -- especially in some of the state’s most troubled districts -- has been one of the hallmarks of his education agenda for the past three-and-a-half years. To recap some of the governor's political -- and personal -- initiatives: appointing a reform-minded superintendent in Newark, and playing a large role in hammering out a new teachers contract there; opposing Abbott v. Burke school-equity decisions; pushing for private school vouchers; blocking the surrender of state control in both Newark and …
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Districts across the state are weighing an array of tactics, from expanded use of ID cards to armed guards in schools.
For all the recent flurry of proposals about gun safety from Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic-led Legislature, few have sought to change much in the places that have spurred much of the discussion: the local schools. The Christie-appointed task force created in the aftermath of the Newtown, CT, killings largely praised the steps that New Jersey schools and the state as a whole have taken in ensuring student safety. In response, the governor in his package of gun safety proposals released on Friday said he would leave further steps to local communities to individually decide for their schools. And the main legislative proposals have said much the same so far, with the most direct proposal from the Democratic leadership only calling …
Thursday, April 18, 2013
At Assembly budget hearing, both sides map out strategies for long, bloody campaigns.
By Michael Aron [Michael Aron is the chief political correspondent of NJTV.] When the Christie budget for FY2014 was unveiled in late February, it looked like there would be almost nothing to fight over in April. The governor had taken the two largest potential issues off the table by fully funding the pension obligation to the tune of $1.6 billion and by agreeing to expand Medicaid. If the pension had been underfunded, the unions and the Democrats would have howled that Christie was a hypocrite. If he had opted out of expanded Medicaid, critics would say he did it because it was part of Obamacare and Christie was protecting his right flank at the expense of 104,000 New Jerseyans without health insurance and at a cost to the state of $227 …
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Governor discusses middle-class reform agenda in town hall meeting at Raritan Valley Community College.
Gov. Chris Christie said there is an "extraordinary divide" between teachers and the unions that represent them during a stop Thursday at Raritan Valley Community College. The governor, on the campaign trail seeking re-election, conducted his 105th town hall meeting to discuss his middle-class reform agenda, including pension and benefits reform, private sector job growth and his take on teachers' unions. Alexa Offenhauer, a part-time English professor at RVCC, said she had entered teaching with the understanding that her pay would be lower, but that the trade-off would be job security and good benefits. Offenhauer asked the governor when rhetoric had changed to make "teachers part of the problem." 'Unions are the problem' "I don't think …
Monday, April 15, 2013
Scholarships up to $10,000 would let 200 low-income students switch to public or private schools elsewhere.
There were plenty of questions but little outright opposition as Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed school-vouchers program got its first public airing Thursday. The controversial issue was a prime topic as the Assembly budget committee held a hearing on Christie’s education budget for fiscal 2014. Education Commissioner Chris Cerf testified for close to five hours on a range of topics. Christie’s proposed $97 million increase in state aid also got plenty of attention, especially after recent revelations that any increases for districts will be blunted by fees charged by the state for school-construction grants. In the end, 267 districts – close to half of all those statewide -- will see net losses in the money they will receive from the state…
Joe R
2:56 pm on Sunday, May 5, 2013
A good comment from truthined: "So Miss Eighth Grade Math Teacher gets a new student from another district - statistically the student is in Miss Eighth Grade Math Teacher's class for 70% of the time. But he arrived to her class two years behind in math achievement. So within that 70% of time, Miss Eighth Grade Math Teacher must bring that one student up two grade levels and have him score … more ›