Battle lines drawn in NJ teacher tenure fight
Gov. Chris Christie, looking to remake public education in New Jersey, has proposed weakening teacher tenure rules and the power of union contracts, as part of a host of reforms billed as the recipe for turning around low-performing districts and at once slashing funding to mostly urban school districts. A new report argues he needs to hit the books a lot harder — before students are further harmed.
"There is nothing remotely 'fair' about cutting essential rungs out from the ladder of economic opportunity for low-income and working-class children across the state," said John Whiten, vice president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, which Thursday released the organization's first comprehensive critique of the governor's policy prescriptions. "The governor's proposal would be a huge step in the wrong direction for our kids and our state's future."
The battle lines, however, have already been drawn. Christie and other groups have filed lawsuits hoping to force the reforms through New Jersey's educational establishment. They would enable schools to layoff low-performing teachers more easily, cut money from urban schools, and distribute state aid uniformly across New Jersey, providing windfalls for affluent districts, where residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation..
The governor's legal action aims to remove legal barriers to his proposed "Fairness Formula" for dramatically redistributing the state's education dollars — a controversial proposal touted by Christie in appearances throughout the state. He says his reforms will help New Jersey stop paying for failure in low-achieving districts and reduce taxes for a majority of the state's homeowners.
HIGHER EDUCATION: NJ college loans to be forgiven in death
"We have filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court to say three things: one, we need to change the school funding formula because it’s not working," he said at a townhall meeting in October. "Two, we need to get rid of, as unconstitutional, last in first out termination of teachers. It should be done based on merit and it is unconstitutional, in my view, to do it purely based on seniority. And third, that the commissioner of education should have the authority to veto any collective bargaining agreement, which has in it things that would diminish a child’s ability to get a thorough and efficient system of education."
The liberal-leaning New Jersey Policy Perspective, however, says the formula is anything but fair. The report's writers say the governor's funding proposal ignores the real problems facing New Jersey schools: poverty, high density and the proliferation of school districts.
Getting rid of bad apples
Five years ago, New Jersey school districts were hampered when it came to firing tenured teachers. Often schools were inspired to act only on the most egregious offenses, such as assaults or drug use, said David Saenz, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.
The process was onerous, taking as long as a year for state officials to make a decision on whether to allow a school to fire a teacher. Attorney fees and substitute teacher pay drove up the costs.
In 2012, state officials and teachers union representatives agreed to modify the system, and Christie signed off on the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act. The new law extended a teacher's wait time for tenure from three years to four years and enabled schools for the first time to fire a tenured teacher for exhibiting subpar classroom performance over time.
Under the previous system, "there was basically no remedy for being able to support them to get better," as well as no way to revoke their tenure due to performance, said Saenz.
John Napolitani Sr., president of the Asbury Park teachers' union, said the 2012 changes are sufficient to root out ineffective teachers. He said the changes sought by the governor are unnecessary.
EDUCATION: Ocean County College helps Star Career Academy students
“I believe that if people aren’t up to par, they should be given every opportunity to correct their deficiences and be given the opportunity to become a better staff member," he said. "But there are processes in place that will basically negate any of the bad staff members and take them out of the mix.”
Teachers are evaluated throughout the year based on observations and student performance on tests and rated on a four-point scale, Napolitani said. If a floundering teacher fails to improve over time, the district has the right to withhold a raise or push for tenure charges, he added.
But Christie's staff and a group of Newark parents are going to court to push for further reforms, ones that would enable a school district to fire even its more senior teachers during a layoff, instead of firing more recent hires.
"They have made it easier to remove ineffective teachers over time than it used to be. I think that’s a good thing," said Thomas Crawley, an associate professor of education at Georgian Court University.
PARTNERSHIP: Brookdale, Asbury schools launch free GED program
“In theory it’s a great idea: document and save the very best people," he said. "(But) do we have the actual tools to make it happen, and do we have the integrity to make it happen?"
Crawley said that current techniques to rate teacher effectiveness have weaknesses. Some models apply the same standards to evaluate teachers in early elementary and high school. Others are limited in their ability to evaluate special education teachers or physical education instructors.
But the governor is unlikely to hold off reforms for such an evaluation process to be perfected.
"What’s going on now doesn’t work," Christie said during a townhall meeting in October. "It doesn’t work, and I can’t sit around any longer and (say) let’s give it another couple years, because in another couple of years some of you (taxpayers) will move because you can’t afford it anymore, another couple of years wastes another kid in Camden and his or her life. They don’t have time to wait."
Steve Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union, said the governor's lawsuit was less about reforming problems in the system than about distracting public attention away from the George Washington Bridge scandal.
“The Christie lawsuit, if you look back on it, was filed just a couple days before the start of the Bridgegate trial," said Baker. "It was a pretty transparent effort to change the discussion.”
The case for reform
Longer school days and school years have been touted as one solution to help low performing schools. Before that can happen, Christie is seeking to give the commissioner of education power to override union contracts, which limit instruction time.
“I think there needs to be radical changes," said Fred Rubenstein, a former member of the Barnegat school board and a retired union official for transportation workers in New York City. “But this is something that can be achieved if the sides bargain.”
Eliminating collective bargaining would kill morale, increase costs and create inefficiency as each worker strikes deals with management, he said.
SHREWSBURY: Lower taxes or a better school?
"You can’t protect the duds," he said. "(But) I think merit is important. I think tenure is important. Can the two be blended? I think they can.”
Christie's lawsuit targets low-income school districts, many of which already lie under state control. Overriding bargaining agreements with these schools amounts to the state overruling itself, said Paul Tractenberg, a retired Rutgers University law professor.
The real problem with the cost of education lies in New Jersey's "undersized" school districts, which lead to educational inefficiencies, Tractenberg said.
New Jersey has a high number of small districts that separate white, wealthy children from low-income minorities, even when they live in relatively close proximity, he said. In turn, the state must step in and equalize the inequities that arise, Tractenberg said.
"We need to identify and tackle the real underlying problems," he said. “It’s too important. It’s too costly.”
Changing the system
The freedom to innovate in schools, with longer school years and longer school days, have been a focus of some of the reforms presented in lawsuits in Superior Court. Some charter schools, which are not constrained by union agreements, are currently using such methods.
Kirsten Ramirez, a 36-year-old mother of two Red Bank Charter School students, welcomes the longer school day for her boys. Both her and her husband work full-time, so her sons' school day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. is convenient, she said. But other factors played a more important role in her decision to send her children to a charter school.
Ramirez said when she attended Red Bank Regional High School years ago, the students from Red Bank struggled to keep up with their peers from Little Silver and Shrewsbury. Ramirez, who moved to Red Bank after high school, said she did not want her sons to face the same academic disadvantage.
PRISONS: Monmouth, Ocean counties challenge bail reform law
"I know what the school system was like before the charter," she said. "And I know the impact it has had on the current situation, but unfortunately 20 years ago, there was no Latino Coalition. The NJEA (New Jersey Education Association) was doing little to help the community and the borough help the school. Things have changed, and fortunately for the better, but I do fear that without this (charter) school and without (other) charter schools, things would go back in the other direction.”
Critics of charter schools say they siphon money away from already struggling public school districts and concentrate high-needs students, like English-language learners and children with special needs, in the public schools.
"The governor’s solitary reliance on charter schools to address the problems of 141 districts receiving state aid cuts fails to even mention the need to address the education of thousands of immigrant and disabled students who are found overwhelmingly in districts suffering reductions in state aid," the New Jersey Policy Perspective report stated.
Thomas Crawley, an associate professor of education at Georgian Court University, said charter schools are not the answer to the crisis facing cities.
"Charter schools are the way of saying ‘ we give up,'" said Crawley. “Are you giving up on public schools?”
Charter schools serve an immediate need for parents who do not want to send their children to low-performing schools, "but they sure leave a lot of kids in a school system that the state may have given up on," he said.
Crawley said elected officials have an obligation to fix these public schools.
"Make it work, for every kid, not just the kids who get into the charter but for all the children there," he said.
HOLMDEL: Nursing home slides in ratings due to turkey breasts
AIRPORT: Wall set $45M tax value unfairly
Amanda Oglesby: 732-557-5701; aoglesby@GannettNJ.com