N.J. Board of Ed votes to open superintendent positions to non-educators
Thursday, July 14, 2011, 9:01 AM
Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — It just got easier to become superintendent of a troubled New Jersey school district.

The state Board of Education Wednesday relaxed the requirements for hiring superintendents in more than 50 districts with failing schools, opening the positions for the first time to non-educators.

Backed by the Christie administration, the new regulations take effect immediately as part of a pilot program for districts with schools that fail to meet federal standards for student achievement based on test scores.

Edithe Fulton was the lone board member to vote against the measure and expressed concerns with its scope. She and former board member Josephine Hernandez, whom Gov. Chris Christie replaced in March, had both pushed for a smaller program.

"It takes more to run a school than being a successful businessman," Fulton said. "Having some contact with actual classrooms is essential."

Under the new rules, applicants will need only a bachelor’s degree and robust management experience to be considered for a superintendent’s job in a troubled district. Local school boards will evaluate candidates using a pre-determined list of criteria.

Superintendents in high performing districts must fulfill much more rigorous standards. They must hold a master’s degree and a number of job-specific credentials. Certification requires testing, an internship and work with a mentor.

Board Vice President Ilan Plawker said he is "very comfortable" with the alternate route superintendent certification, noting that he had no experience as an educator before serving on his local school board.

"These jobs require the administrative skills gained from having run a successful business," Plawker said. "Our end goal is a business product — getting our kids through school and ready for work or college."

Read full article at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/nj_board_of_ed_votes_to_open_s....

Friday, July 15, 2011, 10:48 AM

NEWARK — A former official with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who was in charge of distributing education grants has abandoned plans to open three charter schools of his own in New York City and Newark, N.J.

Tom Vander Ark was granted charters in 2010 to open a high school in Brooklyn and two others in Newark.

But The New York Times reports that after spending more than $1.5 million of investors' money, Vander Ark has walked away from the project and the schools will not open as planned this fall.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 5:53 PM
Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — The state Board of Education has voted to relax requirements for hiring superintendents in the state’s most troubled school districts, opening these jobs to non-educators for the first time.

Pushed by the Christie administration, the new regulations will take effect immediately for the 57 districts across the state with schools that fail to meet a federal standard for student achievement based on student test scores. The pilot program will not include any additional districts in future years.

Long-time board member Edithe Fulton was alone in her disapproval for the measure and expressed concerns about its size and scope. She and former board member Josephine Hernandez had both pushed for a smaller pilot program.

“It takes more to run a school than being a successful business man,” Fulton said. “Having some contact with actual classrooms is essential.”

Under the new regulations, applicants will only need a bachelor’s degree and management experience to apply for superintendent positions.

Read full article at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/state_board_of_ed_votes_to_rel....

Governor's office "strongly encourages" school districts not to use funding to restore cut programs
By John Mooney, July 13 in Education

New Jersey school districts yesterday finally learned more of the details about the extra state aid they will receive under Gov. Chris Christie’s final budget. But there's a twist: the administration wants most of them to use the money for property tax relief.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 7:43 AM
Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — A year after New Jersey’s public schools swallowed the largest state aid cut in recent memory, Gov. Chris Christie Tuesday said he will boost funding for all districts by at least 2 percent of their operating budgets.

Some superintendents said they will use the money to rehire laid off teachers and reduce the size of burgeoning classes. Others will bring back after-school busing or eliminate the costly fees many student athletes were charged to play sports.

Read full article at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/nj_public_schools_to_recieve_2....

By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: July 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — Amid one of the most contentious periods in recent memory for teachers’ unions, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, on Monday called for education reform that emanates from teachers and their communities, rather than from “those who blame teachers for everything.”
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Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times

Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers says the debate “has been hijacked by a group of self-styled reformers.”

“Let’s refuse to be defined by people who are happy to lecture us about the state of public education — but wouldn’t last 10 minutes in a classroom,” Ms. Weingarten told a crowd of about 2,000 here in kicking off the national conference held every two years by the union, which has 1.5 million members.

In the past year, particularly in Wisconsin and New Jersey, governors and some state lawmakers have castigated teachers’ unions and schools’ performance while slashing budgets and pushing newer education strategies like charter schools and more rigorous teacher evaluation.

Read full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/us/12aft.html

Sweeney will not allow votes on overhaul of teacher merit pay and voiding seniority.
By Beth DeFalco
Associated Press

TRENTON - Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) won't allow two of the governor's major education-overhaul proposals to get a vote, effectively killing them before they are formally introduced as bills.

Sweeney said Monday that he objected to Christie's proposals to link teacher salaries to performance and to eliminate teacher seniority protections.

"I've never been a fan of merit pay. I don't believe in it," Sweeney said. "Sometimes when you have merit pay, you have the ability to have favorites. A real hard teacher gets less money than another teacher because he or she is not the favorite."

Sweeney and other critics say seniority protections are needed to protect older teachers from being laid off in order to save districts money on retirement costs.

He supports some of the Republican governor's ideas to overhaul tenure, he said, but he wants to see a different method used to measure teacher performance. He did not say how he would like performance measured.

Read full article at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/125396733.html

By Daniel J. Julius

Recent events in Wisconsin and elsewhere across the nation have raised the question of whether collective bargaining will remain a viable process for faculty at higher-education institutions.

Ostensibly to react to a budget crisis, a new Wisconsin governor successfully introduced legislation abrogating the right of organized public employees to bargain collectively. As a result, public employers, including universities, are not obligated to bargain.

Despite the anti-union climate in some states, academic leaders should continue to honor collectively negotiated agreements, even if they see an opportunity not to do so. Maintaining relationships with faculty unions, rather than being tempted to redraw the labor and human-resources map, is important because of the core reasons faculty choose to unionize—the chaos that could ensue if relationships end, and the potential advantages unionization brings to administrators who understand the process.

Read full article at http://chronicle.com/article/Faculty-Unions-a-Labor-of/128102/