School Officials Hesitate to Support Education Reform

As a part of Gov. Chris Christie’s education reform proposals, acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf that would overhaul tenure for teachers by requiring them to meet a set of performance standards.

“School boards, administrators, and even many teachers have been calling for tenure reform for years so its good to see the door opened for discussion with this proposal,” said Jack Martenak, vice president of Lacey Township’s school board. “As with most initiatives the state undertakes I fear the devil may be in the details, and the details are still under development.”

The reform proposal does not eliminate tenure but would make it easier for districts to strip non-performing teachers of the protection. Educators would face yearly evaluations, and a tenured teacher who failed to reach performance benchmarks for two consecutive years could lose his/her tenured status.

“The time for a national conversation on tenure is long past due. Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform. Let New Jersey lead the way again. The time to eliminate teacher tenure is now,” Christie said in his State of the State address.

Lacey Township Superintendent Richard Starodub said a major criticism of tenure is that the administrative body cannot terminate a teacher once they achieve tenure.

“That’s not true. We’ve done that here a lot of times. Many times people who are moving forward and being scrutinized under tenure charges will resign prior to the proceeding so there’s plenty of room to remove people under the current tenure law,” Starodub said.

After a teacher serves three years and one day, they are guaranteed a fourth year in their district if they are awarded tenure. Under the current system, once teachers achieve tenure, they cannot be simply fired. Tenure charges must be established, leading to an often costly and time-consuming process.

“The effectiveness of the teacher in front of the class is the best way to determine how children learn,” Cerf said.

Cerf called for “demonstrated student learning” and yearly evaluations to be a part of the tenure process. He also suggested teachers' raises could be tied to performance, rather than simply guarranteed by contract.

“Merit pay has been a pretty interesting debate. Rewarding a teacher for growth or improvement, I think that could be worked out but certain teachers in the schools — music teachers, media specialists, physical education teachers, and art teachers — cannot be left out of the model because schools are like small communities,” Starodub said.

President of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Barbara Keshishian called this plan “an unproven step in the wrong direction” saying that research suggests that evaluating teachers solely on their ability to raise test scores does not work because two-thirds of the factors affecting student achievement occur outside the classroom.

“Most troubling, the governor’s proposal essentially eliminates the current fair dismissal process by putting every teacher’s job continually up for grabs.  The uncertainty of that process would have a severe chilling effect on even the best teachers, and subject all teachers to unfair dismissals,” Keshishian said.

Starodub said that the small issues should be discussed along with the big.

“We’re into an environment for simple solutions to complex problems and that’s dangerous,” Starodub said. “Everybody wants everything fixed. Everyone wants their taxes to be cut, everyone wants to go back to work and sometimes we focus on other things to shift the focus of what we should really be looking at.”

Starodub said there are smaller steps that could be taken to improve both teacher and student performance including possibly extending the awarding of tenure from a timeframe of three years and one day to five years, which would give administrators more time to monitor teachers and make the right determination.

Starodub also added that more stringent training should be required of teachers. Some states require teachers to get their master’s degree in a five-year period, Starodub said. In Lacey Township, there is 100 hours of training required in a five-year period.

Both Starodub and Martenak agreed that education reform is needed to a degree but that everyone should be brought to the table to discuss their views.

“I hope the commissioner involves all stakeholders in developing the implementing regulations so that the end product can be supported by Boards of Education, administrators, and high performing teachers; and does not result in greatly increased bureaucratic and administrative burden on the district,” Martenak said.

The proposal is expected to go to the state Legislature in March. To learn more about the proposal read “.”

For more on Starodub’s view on education reform read “.”