By Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor
NJ Today
During his education State of the State address, Commissioner Chris Cerf told a group of school administrators there are reasons to celebrate. Among them, an 86 percent high school graduation rate and a national assessment that ranked New Jersey schools second in the nation. But he says much more work needs to be done to help minorities and the poor make the grade on student assessment tests like NJ ASK.
“On the NJ ASK score, that’s a 32-point gap that’s actually expanded over the last seven or eight years,” said Cerf. “That is an absolutely stunning state of affairs.”
Cerf believes high quality teachers will help all students and he’s optimistic the new teacher and principal evaluation system that began this school year will ultimately benefit teachers and students despite some minor challenges implementing it.
“While this is a complicated implementation and I absolutely appreciate that it is bumpy, that it has been bumpy and will be bumpy, this is not sort of an overnight decision,” Cerf said.
“We know this year’s gonna be a difficult one because the capacity to implement all of those observations, evaluations and productive discussions is really going to be trying,” said New Jersey Association for School Administrators Executive Director Richard Bozza.
The evaluations come as new common core standards, adopted in 2010, are being phased in over several years. Another change that may be on the horizon — a proposal that would require a higher grade point average for prospective teachers.
“We think that’s in the right direction. I don’t think it’s the most important arrow in the quiver, but I think it is indicative of a general view that we need make sure that our best and brightest become educators,” said Cerf.
“I understand that the easiest thing to do is raise the bar on the grade point average. So we’re starting there. We’re not opposed to that but there’s a lot more that goes into making effective teaching and we’re looking at that on the practice side,” Bozza said.
With all of these changes, the commissioner admits there could be a drop in some test scores when a new assessment called PARC is implemented in 2015.
“These reflect a different way of teaching and a higher set of expectations for learning. They’re internationally benchmarked, they’re much more focused on critical analytic skills and critical thinking. And so it wouldn’t surprise me, just based on intuition, not knowledge, that when you set the bar higher, not as many people will be able to cross it,” Cerf said.
Cerf says the state will continue to offer school officials the support they need to meet these challenges.