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FYI - State Board of Education Meeting today, 4 p.m.
Njspotlight.com - Evaluating School Principals: The "Other" Educators
Wall Street Journal - Christie Picks Newark Schools Chief New York Official to Take Over Newark
Nj.com - Christie eyes former N.Y.C. schools chief for top Newark school post
Njspotlight.com - Evaluating School Principals: The "Other" Educators
Gov. Christie has made teacher evaluation a hot-button issue, but his proposed changes will also affect more than 2,000 New Jersey school principals
By John Mooney, May 4
As teacher tenure and other reforms get debated ad nauseum in New Jersey, one topic that seems to have fallen off the radar screen is how to improve the quality of the people who actually supervise teachers: school principals.
Gov. Chris Christie last month laid out detailed proposals for reforming tenure and evaluating teachers and principals, but it was teachers -- a subject he often rails about at town meetings -- that got most of the attention.
Yet the draft bills could affect the more than 2,000 school principals in the state, holding them to stricter standards than ever before.
According to the proposals, principals, like teachers, will be evaluated in part on how well their students do on standardized tests, a consideration that will likely affect whether principals receive and preserve tenure. Student attendance and graduation rates will also play a role, possibly in merit pay.
The most important factor may well be how principals encourage the best teachers on staff and take action to deal with ineffective ones.
"The focus seems to be on how we evaluate teachers, and I haven’t seen much focus on the principals," said Brian Zychowski, the North Brunswick superintendent who led the governor’s task force that developed much of the plan for evaluating teachers and principals.
"But I’ve been of the opinion from the get-go that we want to start with the person leading the school and work our way down," he said.
Zychowski is slated to go before the State Board of Education (BOE) today to give an overview of the task force report and its recommendations for both teachers and principals.
The task force's recommendations carried forward into Christie’s draft bills call for a new evaluation system that would include using student test scores as a key measure of whether teachers and principals are deemed "effective" or not.
Such grades could determine when and how both teachers and principals would receive and retain tenure, under Christie’s bills, as well as lay the groundwork for potential merit pay and other systems for rewarding educators.
But where teacher evaluation systems are better known, how the same factors would apply to principals is less clear. Christie’s plans only say they would fall under the same general guidelines, but leave a fair amount of discretion to the state education commissioner to determine the details.
"We’re still waiting to see exactly what it would look like," said Debra Bradley, chief lobbyist for the state’s principals and supervisors association. "We’re open to the fact we can do better and to the idea of having some uniformity across the state, but there are also some concerns.”
As with the debate over teacher accountability, one of the main issues remains how student achievement for principals will be measured with the state’s tests in flux and the system for linking student scores to individuals still in development.
It’s easier with principals, since scores are already linked with entire schools. But Bradley said she understood there would be other achievement measures to be considered as well, including attendance and graduation rates.
"That’s the big question: what will be on the list and how will each be rated," she said. "We would prefer that local districts be able to pick from the list."
Another point of contention is a specific proposal from the task force report that would give weight to how well a principal retains strong teachers and acts on low-performing ones. The report recommends that be 10 percent of the grade; Christie’s draft legislation doesn’t get into that much detail.
Bradley pointed out that principals are not always the ones responsible for such staffing decisions. But Zychowksi argued that there needs to be a cleaner connection between a principal’s leadership and the success of the people he or she leads.
"Right now, the only ones really held accountable for student performance are superintendents," he said. "We can’t be making excuses any more."
Wall Street Journal - Christie Picks Newark Schools Chief New York Official to Take Over Newark
MAY 4, 2011 By LISA FLEISHER and BARBARA MARTINEZ
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has selected Cami Anderson, a top New York City schools official, to lead the state-run Newark Public School system, according to several people with knowledge of the selection.
Ms. Anderson, 39 years old, will attempt to reform the largest and one of the most troubled public school systems in the state, a district that is the focal point for Mr. Christie's education policy. Newark has about 38,000 students, and only half of them graduate from high school in four years.
Gov. Chris Christie, pictured here yesterday during a press conference in Trenton, has selected Cami Anderson to lead the Newark Public School system.
The pick of Ms. Anderson ends a months-long search with few viable candidates, as major districts such as Chicago and New Orleans hunted for chief executives simultaneously.
Though a final salary hasn't been decided, the $280,000 salary of the district's former superintendent is a "benchmark," said Christopher Cerf, the acting state education commissioner. The former superintendent, Clifford Janey, was told in August his contract wouldn't be renewed.The state board of education, which votes on the superintendent, will have the appointment on the agenda at the next possible meeting, Mr. Cerf said.
Ms. Anderson, who worked on Mr. Booker's unsuccessful mayoral run in 2002, emerged as a candidate only within the last month. The other finalist for the job, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, had been fired in March as head of Seattle's school system, but was considered a strong candidate.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who visited Newark last month, praised the selection.
"This a critical time and a tremendous opportunity for Newark's local leaders, educators, community members and business partners as they work to create lasting education reform," he said. "Cami Anderson has built a track record of extraordinary leadership in education, and I believe she can provide the kind of bold vision that will help Newark continue its crucial work toward providing all children the opportunity for a high quality public education."
Ms. Anderson has been a teacher, both in Montessori schools and through the Teach for America program. But the bulk of her career has been in management.
She was executive director of Teach for America in New York and worked for a leadership nonprofit before being hired in New York City in 2006.
Joel Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, recruited Ms. Anderson to lead District 79, the group of programs for the city's most challenging students—those who have been through the prison system, returning drop-outs, or otherwise have multiple risk factors for dropping out. Ms. Anderson's "personal life commitment has been really devoted to working with the most under-served," said Mr. Klein, now an executive for News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Anderson made the decision to close schools for pregnant students or young mothers under the belief that segregating those young women from their peers was harmful.
Ms. Anderson was itching to "totally transform the system in three and a half minutes," said Randi Weingarten, president of the national American Federation of Teachers, who was head of the New York City teachers union at the time. Instead of simply closing schools and leaving teachers to find jobs on their own, the two worked out a deal that required teachers to re-apply for their jobs.
"Initially it was a bumpy start, but then we actually worked together fairly decently," she said.
Ms. Anderson made the GED program full time, adding services and classes to help students to make the transition into college or into the work force, said Tim Lisante, deputy superintendent, who works with Ms. Anderson.
Ms. Anderson will face an outspoken and involved public, many of whom think the school governance needs to be more transparent and many of whom don't trust current leaders.
Nicole Singletary, a parent a daughter in the Newark schools, said that she understood Ms. Anderson "has no connection to the city of Newark" other than working for Mr. Booker's campaign.
"Do you see where the outcry comes from?" said Ms. Singletary, who attended a raucous school advisory board meeting Tuesday night.
Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com
Nj.com - Christie eyes former N.Y.C. schools chief for top Newark school post
Published: Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 9:00 PM Updated: Wednesday, May 04, 2011, 5:52 AM
York City school official Cami Anderson will be nominated as superintendent of the Newark public school district.
Gov. Chris Christie tomorrow will nominate Cami Anderson, a New York City superintendent, to serve as Newark’s next schools chief, three people with knowledge of the decision said tonight.
Anderson’s appointment comes after an eight-month search for someone to lead the state’s largest and most troubled school district. Christie is expected to make the announcement Wednesday morning at Science Park High School, said the three people, who are not authorized to speak publicly about the nomination.
The hurdles Anderson, 39, will face as Newark superintendent are considerable. Only half of the city’s 38,000 public school students graduate in four years, and virtually all Newark students who attend nearby Essex County College need more than a year of remedial instruction before they are ready for college course work.
Christie has staked his education reform agenda on successfully transforming the failing district, which the state has run since 1995. Christie’s effort is being helped along by a $100 million matching gift from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said Anderson is the right choice for Newark because of her unique experience managing discipline problems while also being an instructional leader.
"She is a very special person with that commitment to tackle the most serious group of challenges we face in urban public education," Klein said.
Since 2006, Anderson has served as a senior superintendent for what’s known as District 79, a group of alternative high schools and programs for troubled students in New York City. In that role, she leads degree-granting programs for students incarcerated in the city’s juvenile justice system and others who are at risk of dropping out.
"When I really wanted to change District 79, she did not disappoint," Klein said.
Before joining the New York City school system, Anderson, a former colleague of acting state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, headed several non-profit education foundations, including New Leaders for New Schools, a firm that recruits principals, and Teach for America, a national program that recruits teachers to work in urban districts.
She is also no stranger to Newark, having worked as a paid consultant on Mayor Cory Booker’s unsuccessful mayoral campaign in 2002.
Anderson could not be reached for comment.
If the state Board of Education approves her nomination, Anderson would succeed former Superintendent Clifford Janey, whose contract Christie chose not to renew last September. Deborah Terrell has served as interim Newark superintendent since Janey left.
At least one community leader is already questioning the process that led to Anderson’s selection.
The Star-Ledger previously reported Anderson was one of two finalists for the job, along with Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.
"I am deeply disappointed in the secretive process used in choosing the superintendent," said Wilhelmina Holder, who served on the selection committee. "I believe in my heart that people were invited in and there was not a national search as there was in 2008" when Janey was selected.
By Jessica Calefati and David Giambusso/The Star-Ledger
