By Dari Kotzker
NJ Today
There’s less than a year before the 2013-2014 school year begins and the full statewide roll-out of the new education evaluation system starts. Today the state Board of Eduction members, including Education Commissioner Chris Cerf, quickly adopted the first round of regulations to help guide districts in evaluating teachers’ performances.
“Today was just sort of a casting in cement what was already being done in ’12-13. Next month is going to be a time when we’re really going to provide a lot more details on the bill, where the bill is sort of silent, on things like how many observations are we going to require, what is student growth, how does that play into the sort of final sum of ratings,” said New Jersey Department of Education Assistant Commissioner and Chief Talent Officer Peter Shulman.
WATCH VIDEO:
“The big show will be when they put the meat on the bone as to what will be done in the evaluations, how many there will be, what percentage of test scores, what will you do with non-standardized test teachers such as art and music,” said New Jersey Education Association Vice President Wendell Steinhauer.
So far, 34 districts have participated in the multi-year pilot program that will help develop the educator evaluation systems. The NJEA is concerned about the cost of implementation for school districts.
“Money always flows in pilots and then it’s OK, we figured everything out and now just just go do it with the other 545 districts. Well, that’s going to be money and I don’t know if the state’s got a lot of bankroll for that,” Wendell said.
“We believe that existing resources need to be prioritized, we’re not saying this is something that can be done necessarily cheaply but there are different variations of cost of training, in different instruments and tools that can be purchased working together for economies of scale,” Shulman said.
Yesterday the Department of Education announced results of New Jersey’s first year of the teacher evaluation pilot program, although it’s in its second year. The department says there are many positive results, but there’s still work that needs to be done before September. And the NJEA says this process is moving too fast.
“They’re putting all the regulations in. Don’t we want to finish the pilot program first to maybe get that information to help guide those regulations?” asked Wendell.
“I will frankly disagree that we should sort of stop the train, however we’re looking to sort of learn. I think that one, three, five, seven years out we’ll continue to see a better system and better processes that’s going to better inform the instruction of our educators and again be better for kids,” Shulman said.
State education officials say they will introduce the proposed regulations in March, followed by a period of public comment and discussion. And according to the timeline, they should be adopted by September.