Educational Law Center's Analysis of NJ School Report Card

ANALYSIS OF NJ DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION'S NEW SCHOOL PERFORMANCE REPORTS FINDS FAULT ON MANY LEVELS WITH METHODOLOGY AND INACCURATE DATA

On April 10, 2013, the NJ Department of Education (DOE) released their much anticipated, and much delayed, School Performance Reports, which replace the State School Report Cards.

In releasing the Performance Reports, the DOE claimed they will "help users better understand school performance in the context of state performance and the performance of similar 'peer schools.'"

The Performance Reports, however, fail to live up to this claim. Unlike the School Report Cards, the new reports are dense, confusing and needlessly complex. NJ school administrators have already raised serious concerns about inaccurate data and the convoluted and controversial school "peer rankings."

Most importantly, the complexity of the Performance Reports defeats their basic purpose: to give parents and taxpayers key information about the overall performance of their public schools and districts - successes, gains and challenges. Instead, the reports use very complicated methods of sorting and comparing individual schools with "peer" groupings, statewide averages and other benchmarks. This complexity makes the reports difficult, if not impossible, for parents, concerned citizens, lawmakers and others to understand and use to engage in positive efforts to support New Jersey's public education system.

The cornerstones of the new Performance Reports are comparisons of individual schools' test scores, graduation rates and other indicators with schools that supposedly share similar student enrollment characteristics. The DOE has decided to no longer use District Factor Groups (DFG) for comparison. DFGs placed districts, not schools, into eight groups based on the socioeconomic conditions of the communities they served. Instead of the DFGs, the DOE is using a methodology called "Propensity Score Matching," which creates a list of "peers" for each school in New Jersey, grouping schools together based on shared demographic characteristics, namely student poverty, limited English proficiency, and Special Education classification.

However, the DOE has made some questionable analytic decisions that result in comparisons among schools that actually vary quite dramatically in terms of their student makeup. This variation in so-called "peer" groupings of schools has generated confusion and frustration among local educators and stakeholders.

In addition, the DOE took the additional step of comparing each individual school to both its "peers" and the state overall using percentile ranks. The reports compare a school's position relative to other schools using a scale from zero to ninety-nine, representing the percentage of "peer schools" that school is outperforming.

The DOE's use of this method creates problems because percentile ranks are relative, or in other words a zero-sum game. A school can only be seen as successful, or "highly performing," if it is outpacing its "peer schools," regardless of its actual achievement. The DOE's failure to provide an adequate context for these rankings means users will have no idea about the absolute distance between a school ranked at the bottom and one ranked at the top. The schools may vary widely in performance, or hardly at all. Without offering any additional data on the range of scores, the user is unable to determine how meaningful those rankings are.

The DOE then goes further by labeling schools using an even broader categorization of the percentile rankings. The computer-generated "school narratives" assign schools to one of five performance categories ranging from "very high" to "significantly lagging." This means that, regardless of absolute achievement, many schools are labeled as "lagging" simply because they are on the lower end of their peer group, not because they are underperforming in any meaningful sense.

For example, if a school has a proficiency rate of 95%, but the majority of its peers score even higher, this school will have a low percentile ranking and will be labeled as "lagging," despite a high level of achievement. In another scenario, a school may have a proficiency rate of 75% and a low peer percentile rank, but could be separated from its top performing peer by just a few, or as many as 25, percentage points.

In choosing to present the data in this way, the DOE has created a framework of competitive rankings and an emphasis on labeling performance as "lagging," even among the state's highest performing schools. The reports do not give parents clear information to realistically judge their children's schools' performance, and they burden school administrators with the unforgiving task of explaining the complicated and sometimes contradictory classifications.

"The over-emphasis on complex rankings is consistent with NJ Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf's continuing narrative of 'failing public schools' when, in fact, New Jersey's public schools are among the best in the nation," said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. "Rather than helping facilitate community conversations and collaborative efforts to improve our schools, the new Performance Reports are clearly designed to justify the Christie Administration's agenda of cutting State investment in public education and imposing heavy-handed, top-down interventions from Trenton."

Using the DOE's own labeling, the new Performance Reports are "significantly lagging."

Education Law Center Press Contact:

Sharon Krengel

Policy and Outreach Director

skrengel@edlawcenter.org

973-624-1815, x 24

Is Right-Wing School Reform (Texas) Toast?

On occassion I find it necessary to share someone's perspective.  I picked this up from AASA and consider it worth reading:

by Jeff Bryant

It’s a conventional wisdom among Democrats to write off the state of Texas as a land of gun wielding troglodytes who genuflect to Rush Limbaugh and swill Fox News Kool-Aid. (Full disclosure: I was born and raised in the Lone Star State.)
But it may surprise most Democrats that the education policies that our current Democratic administration advances were, in a large part, invented in the oh-so awful red state of George W. Bush and Rick Perry.
The widespread idea that government operatives working in cubicles buried deep in the bowels of state capitals can monitor the “effectiveness” of schools in the hinterlands of the country was a scheme born and enacted first in a state known to be among the most oppressive in its treatment of people who Democrats like to refer to as “the least of these.”
But what happened this weekend in the Texas capital of Austin revealed a groundswell of resistance, from multiple political factions, against what has been heretofore defined as “education reform.”
A rally that brought thousands of people into the streets to protest deep cuts to the state’s education budget became a mass outcry against education policies that enforce high-stakes testing and accountability systems.
Education historian Diane Ravitch declared Texas the place where reform “madness” started and where “the vampire gets garlic in its face and a mirror waved and a stake in its heart.”
Former Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott talked about turning in his “reformer card” and described promoters of school accountability schemes as people who are “selling two ideas and two ideas only: No. 1, your schools are failing, and No. 2, if you give us billions of dollars, we can convince you [of] the first thing we just told you.”
And Texas school superintendent John Kuhn called the pushback to school reform measures, “our San Jacinto.”
If Texas set the precedent for the last 20 years of education governance, is it now the state about to hurl the current reform model into the dustbin of history?
A Texas-Sized Mess
A recent article in that bastion of radical leftist thought, The American Conservative, took us “back in time” to recount how education policies that became the law of the land got their start in cowboy culture.
The author of the article, Texas Workforce Commissioner Tom Pauken, explained, “For the past two decades, excessive emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing and a one-size-fits-all focus on preparing all students for college came to dominate education policy in Texas and later, in Washington, D.C. with the passage of the Bush-Kennedy “No Child Left Behind” legislation.”
To trace this history, Pauken actually dialed his time machine back even further to the 1980s when computer mogul and zany presidential candidate H. Ross Perot pushed for a “basic skills test” requirement for earning a Texas high school diploma. A test-based accountability system gained momentum in the 1990s when state lawmakers decided to use test scores and passing rates to categorize schools as “Exemplary,” “Recognized,” “Acceptable,” and “Low Performing.” (Sound familiar?) http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-13-education13_ST_N.htm
Pauken noted, “These categories … had little to do with measuring whether schools were preparing students for success in college or for meaningful employment. But the labels played well from a public-relations standpoint.”
Then, during the Bush governorship, local school districts throughout Texas ratcheted up their attention to the “performance measurements put in place by the state particularly the testing system.”
Now, 15 years later, according to Pauken, “The state’s one-size-fits-all accountability system pressures school districts to spend an inordinate amount of time teaching to the test. As one teacher told me, it all becomes a numbers game to get the most students to pass the single test.”
The test driven approach, according to Pauken, has led to a narrowed curriculum that has produced “worker shortages in the skilled trades,” declines in student performance on college entrance exams, and “a serious problem with high school dropouts.”
The Myth Of The Texas Miracle
Nevertheless, the Texas approach to education policy provided the model for accountability measures pushed by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top and other measures.
Writing at the website of “liberal” MSNBC, Jason Stanford recounted pretty much the same history that Pauken imparted.
Even when scores on the state assessments rose, Stanford explained, “SAT scores dropped. Researchers discovered that the Texas tests designed by Pearson primarily measured test-taking ability.” And “over all Texas lost ground to the rest of the country.”
Both men pin a lot of the blame for test-crazed education policies on a Democrat, Sandy Kress, Bush’s chief education adviser. According to Stanford, Kress convinced Bush, “The ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ was holding back minority students in failing schools. His solution: if Texas made all schools give the same tests, the state could direct resources where they would do the most good, and eventually African-American and Hispanic kids would catch up to the white kids. It was a great theory, and initially the scores rose.”
This became known as the “Texas Miracle,” according to Stanford, and once Bush became president, “Kress lobbied Sen. Ted Kennedy to add bipartisan legitimacy” to NCLB, which then “spread the Texas Miracle to the other 49 states.”
The Texas Miracle started to collapse when CBS News exposed Texas school officials routinely hiding drop out figures.
But Republicans and Democrats alike remained united in thinking that test pressures would eventually yield higher achievement levels for all students. But if that were indeed the case, wouldn’t those higher levels have started to become reality in the place were test pressures have been in place the longest?
Holding School Accountability To Account
To answer that question, Texas-based education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig has spent a lot of time examining the results of the Texas education regime. Writing at his own website, he found, over the past decade, the state’s students have performed “poorly,” relative to other states, on the benchmark National Assessment of Education Progress exam, a.k.a “The Nation’s Report Card.
“Texas dropped 21 spots in 4th grade math, four spots in 4th grade reading, and eight spots in 8th grade reading,” Heilig observed.
“As a former employee of the Houston Independent School District, we inside the belly of the beast had access to our data and knew accountability hadn’t delivered on the scale that was being promoted in the popular press,” Heilig explained.
When Heilig and other reform-doubters warned testing pressures were producing “teaching to the test, push-out of children, and the narrowing curriculum,” they were summarily dismissed by those “still drinking the high-stakes testing and accountability Kool-Aid.”
“The reason why we’re seeing, well, what we’re seeing, after 10 years of No Child Left Behind is the fact that we didn’t close the gaps, the fact that our graduation rates haven’t gone anywhere, our dropout rates haven’t improved because Texas never did that in the 1990s,” said Heilig. “Accountability had never delivered that. It had never done it. And that’s why over the last 10 years now that we have Texas-style accountability and policy in the whole United States, the reason why it didn’t deliver is because it never delivered in Texas then.”
Testing Backlash Breaks Out
The extent of the test mania now appears to know no bounds.
A recent article in The New York Times reported that gym teachers around the country are being forced to incorporate test-prep into PE by teaching reading, writing and arithmetic as well as sports and exercise.
In Chicago, kindergartners may spend up to a third of their class time taking tests.
Educators, parents, and students are pushing back – not just in Texas, but around the country.
Prominent and respected school superintendents from around the country are now speaking out against the damage being done by over-testing plus the misuse of testing in Charlotte, NC, Montgomery County, MD, and Sacramento.
A test boycott started by teachers at a high school in Seattle drew national press. Parents and students joined in support of the teachers, and now the boycott has spread to Portland, OR.
High school students in Providence, RI recently staged a “zombie protest” to protest a high stakes test required for graduation.
“We are finally waking up,” Heilig concluded in his blog post cited above.
The Next “Education Bipartisanship”?
So with both conservatives and liberals questioning the whole school accountability movement, Democrats need to reconsider their support for these flawed policies.
The notion of accountability came from a desire – approved by both political parties – to create a mechanism to ensure that schools everywhere didn’t overlook the rights of poor and minority children to receive the same quality of education their white, better-off peers get.
More than a decade after NCLB became law, the achievement gap hasn’t closed, schools have become more segregated, and there’s evidence that test-driven accountability mandates are doing irreparable harm to students everywhere.
People who happen to actually know something about education have proposed alternatives to the testing craze. Democrats who want to avoid getting blind-sided by the next bipartisan agenda for education had better start checking those alternatives out.

Securing America's Schools and Her Future

In the mid 1990’s school administrators nationwide were concerned about an upward trend in violence and drug use among teenagers.  As a result school officials embraced the idea of adding the position of School Resource Officer (SRO) in America’s public schools.    The inclusion of police in a school setting was a relatively new concept and defining a proper role for armed police in public schools was problematic.  At that time I wrote an article for the National Association of Secondary School Principals titled “The Legal Implications of School Resource Officers in Public Schools” detailing the conflicts that confronted police officers in public schools.  I recall a school board meeting at that time in Williamsburg/James City County Public Schools where enraged parents insisted that any police officer assigned to a public school not carry a gun.   Imagine that!

Fast-forward twenty years.  Two decades of school shootings have redefined the climate and landscape for public schools.  The most recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut fueled a national debate regarding the need for teachers to carry  guns and a serious discussion concerning the National Rifle Association’s idea to place armed police officers in every school. All this even though teen violence has trended downward in the past decade.  So the question becomes:  How much security is necessary to protect our children in schools?

The answer to the above may have to be reframed: How much security personnel can public schools afford?  Recent economic conditions and shortfalls in state budgets have had a negative impact on local school budgets.  Many public schools are struggling to maintain the current level of educational services and educational personnel during the downward trend in public school financing.  Adding a police officer in every school will be an expensive proposition and needs to be weighed against many competing priorities.

One could argue that while adding armed personnel to public schools may be politically appealing, it may also create an atmosphere of apprehension that redefines school climate and culture.  There is no simple solution to such a complex problem. What may be necessary are a variety of approaches to addressing the safety issues concerning school facilities and the participants who occupy them.

The proliferation of security cameras and the infusion of digital technology have enhanced our ability to monitor school facilities.  More and more sophisticated electronic equipment designed to limit access to buildings is evolving and in use.  Identification badges, visitor sign in protocols, and criminal background checks for all school personnel inclusive of vendors and contractors are emerging in public schools. 

Monthly school safety and security drills, usually conducted in collaboration with local police authorities are now commonplace.   The employment of School Security Officers (SSO) for use in public schools appears to be on the rise in order to monitor school buildings and grounds.  If federal funding is provided, educational administrators will consider bringing School Resource Officers (SRO) back into school facilities. 

Sadly, all of the above items may not prevent another school tragedy like the one in Newtown, Connecticut.   This is the price of a free and uncensored society where individuals have unlimited access to the internet and information that potentially validates any radical ideology or perversion they choose to pursue.  Limiting access to assault weapons may help and President Obama appears to be leading the charge on this effort in spite of strong resistance from the N.R.A.  There are no simple solutions to a very complex issue and government regulations, executive orders, or decrees may not provide the ultimate solution.

Much will be written about the mental condition of individuals who commit horrific crimes, mass murders, and other travesties.  What we can do to protect our children and society from the rage that drives an individual to the brink of insanity?  This will most likely be left to local communities to decide what approaches are feasible and affordable.   There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the security challenges confronting public schools and other public facilities.

Public awareness of how difficult it is to secure the safety of individuals and particularly our children needs to evolve into public support for American public schools in general.  We need to realize and acknowledge how valuable public education is to the whole fabric of American society. Living in a free society carries risks as well as rewards and our charge is to find a way to mitigate the threats against civility.  Public education itself may provide the best answer.

It is paramount that we put the financial resources in place to ensure that we can accomplish the mission of developing a well-balanced generation of informed citizens for America’s future.  To accomplish this will require a wholesale shift in the perception regarding what we are capable of doing in America’s public schools to ensure safe conditions for the moment and stability for the future.  Our very own safety and security as a society will be affected by our willingness to make a significant investment in public education.  What do you think?

Newtown School Tragedy

The horrible tragedy in Newtown CT has captured the attention of the nation and schools across our country. As supt. of schools for Hopatcong Borough NJ, I am not alone in my sadness and wish to express my sincere prayers to all who have suffered a loss due to this senseless tragedy.  There are implications from this terrible event that are felt in every school and community in America.  Here in Hopatcong, NJ, I want to assure out parents, children, educators, and community that we will continue to do everything possible at our schools to ensure the safety and welfare of our children and older students. I am meeting with the administrative team and police officials to reveiw all current safety protocols and reveiw any potential new resources and information relating to school security and safety. I will disuss this at the BOE meeting and we will take all necessary measures to continue to monitor the safety of our schools. Our schools continue to be locked throuhgout the day and all parents or visitors must ring a bell in order to gain entry. We ask that you be patient as there may be a delay at the front door while we continue to check on each individual who requests entry. Again, we continue to practice all safety percautions with our staff and children in order to be as proactive as possible. We will have our counselors on hand at all schools if any child demonstrates any discomfort this week as a reaction to the Newtown incident. However, keep in mind it is equaly important for us to continue with our regular classroom and school routines in order to maintain the stable environment children and adults have come to trust in school. Thank you for your attention during these difficult times.

My School Lunch Experience

As superintendent of schools for Hopatcong Borough, New Jersey, I have been asked to do some interesting things. Last month in response to some rather limited student complaints about the new federal food serving guidelines (ie: the “bland” taste of school cafeteria food) two School Board members and I ate several meals in each of our schools for a week. The experience was generally very positive. It’s been awhile since I dined with six and seven year old children and found the companionship to be very enlightening to say the least.



The primary reason for my culinary endeavor was to taste the food which I found to be delightful and very healthy. Over the course of several days I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, taco salad, fruit, a chicken sandwich, a vegetable wrap, fruit, a hamburger, fruit, vegetables, more fruit, carrot sticks, even more fruit, celery sticks, and sampled some baked pizza. They even let me have an ice cream sandwich with my chocolate milk one day for dessert!



The energy and activity in our school cafeterias is beyond description….kids are generally happy and very interactive people so I got a healthy dose of socialization. By and large I was welcomed if not an anomaly in the typical school cafeteria setting. But most importantly I was sampling freshly prepared healthy meals. They were not mom’s home cooked vintage meals, but rather institutional food prepared by local moms who happen to work for our school cafeteria service. The nutritional guidelines are very strict and limit any enhancements (like salt) or deep fried foods, hence we cannot compare to the local McDonald’s restaurant as we are not permitted to serve similar type foods prepared commercially.



But I will attest to the fact that the food we serve meets all the federal guidelines for calories, fat content, nutrition, etc., and by most standards is very good. My School Board members and I agreed that we felt satisfied if not “full” after each nutritious meal. In fact, I even lost a few pounds that week! Just in time for Halloween.

Teacher Evaluation Needs More Comprehensive Reforms

A new state mandate proposed by legislators to rate teachers utilizing a combination of standardized test scores for students and enhanced classroom evaluations appears flawed at its inception. Both criteria represent what I will characterize as “snapshots” of teacher performance and fail to provide administrators with a complete picture of total accomplishment over time. To make matters even worse, political forces desire to base future teacher compensation on the results of teacher evaluation. What is needed in New Jersey and nationwide is a comprehensive approach regarding teacher evaluation or simply stated more of a “motion picture” of overall performance. As we in New Jersey embark upon an effort to identify and adopt a more valid and reliable system for teacher evaluation it appears that some progress may be made to standardize evaluation processes across districts. Unfortunately, the New Jersey State Department of Education has failed to capitalize on the moment and conceptualize a more progressive and comprehensive system for the evaluation of teachers. This lost opportunity in New Jersey only means that the limited means for evaluating teacher performance will provide a lot of interest in teacher evaluation but little in terms of real needed reform. At work in other states across this country are efforts to attain a more comprehensive and composite picture of teacher performance utilizing much broader data sources than a standardized test score or “moment in time” observation approach to evaluation. In doing so many states have abandoned the summative notion of administrator-teacher interaction and open the door for more frequent and formative professional exchanges. A movement away from the “Polaroid view” of rating teachers based upon a single classroom visit by an administrator to a more comprehensive exchange of ideas, concepts, pedagogy, and dialogue between educational professionals is necessary. This means that the educational community has to recognize the complexities inherent in the delivery of instruction in these ever-changing technological times and abandon the one-size-fits-all approach to evaluating teaching and learning. We employed in American public education are highly aware of the challenges of educating the most diverse population on planet Earth and must not acquiesce to political forces indifferent of how difficult and complex delivering educational services actually can be in these contemporary times. American educators who have studied and led the movement to reform teacher evaluation have been clear about the need to create more inclusive and collaborative interactions between teachers and those responsible for making summary judgments about performance. This means that outdated concepts of power and position embedded in the current labor/management paradigm must yield to far more collegial relationships among educators. The shift away from summative exchanges between administrator and teacher will need to evolve towards many more formative interactions, and ratings must be reserved for the end of an evaluation cycle. Under current practice, each time an administrator visits classrooms for observation purposes an evaluation of performance is expected. Too many elements of teaching are hidden from view during direct observation and too little time is spent observing in the first place for the current process to be considered either valid or reliable. In fact, when calculating administrator-teacher contact time during classroom instruction administrator observations account for less than 1% of overall direct instruction time per teacher. Compounding the current maelstrom of evaluation reform is the notion that somehow standardized test scores must play a role in rating teachers. So much has been disclosed nationally on the narrow view of student performance resulting from externally developed one-size-fits-all standardized tests, that teachers of core content subjects should not be held to account for such results. More emphasis on locally developed assessments, student growth models, and the professional development of teachers of all subjects must replace narrowly conceived notions surrounding standardized tests in core subjects. Until the frenzy created by political forces abates and solid educational knowledge is applied to evaluation practices for teachers nationwide, public schools will be unable to account for the validity or reliability of teacher evaluation. Significant reform is needed free of undue pressure or influence of legislators. The consequences for not making adequate progress in the evaluation of teachers will continue to delay much needed reforms in the delivery of educational services to America’s children.

Retirement announcement

June 25, 2012 Attention: Hopatcong Borough School Board Dear Board Members: It is with much deliberation and regret that I choose to inform you of my intent to retire from service to the Hopatcong Borough School Board effective July 1, 2013. The 2012-2013 school year marks my 40th year in public education and fourth full year in Hopatcong Borough. The announcement of my intent to retire is precipitated by our contractual agreement to serve notice to the Hopatcong School Board prior to the beginning of the fourth year of service. The decision to complete my career at this time has been accelerated by the action of the governor of this state to set limits on salaries for school superintendents and not a result of any other factor. I have enjoyed working in Hopatcong Borough and embraced the many challenges we collectively faced over the recent years with this School Board. Despite the difficult personnel and programmatic decisions we were compelled to make as a result of severe economic conditions, I feel we have made notable progress in many critical areas including technology, curriculum, special education, academic achievement, state accountability, personnel, facilities, and collaboration with the community. Thank you for supporting the educational initiatives we have undertaken and for your overall support of this school administration. My best efforts will be dedicated to moving the Hopatcong Schools forward in the weeks and months ahead. Most Sincerely, Charles Maranzano, Jr., Ed.D.

A New Kind of High School: What do you think?

The following article summarize the needed changes in high school structure over the next decade and years ahead. What do you think? Published Online: May 8, 2012 Published in Print: May 9, 2012, as It's Time for a New Kind of High School Commentary It's Time for a New Kind of High School By Jerry Y. Diakiw Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org. Read more FREE content! Printer-Friendly Email Article Our high schools are relics of the past. Based on an antiquated economic formula designed for the Industrial Revolution, high schools in the United States and Canada are ill-suited for the emotional and intellectual well-being of our young people and profoundly out of step with the needs of our contemporary economy. We have been tinkering with the high school formula for decades, but the recipe for innovation has yet to be written. As academic and Phi Delta Kappan columnist Ben Levin pointed out in a paper in 2010: "Schools embody an industrial model of organization in a postindustrial world, and an authoritarian and hierarchical character in a world where networks and negotiations are increasingly prevalent." And Sir Ken Robinson, the noted international education expert, said in 2006 at the TED conference that we have been "trying to meet the future by doing what we did in the past, and on the way we have been alienating millions of kids who don't see any purpose in going to school." Minority children and those living in poverty are not playing the game. They are dropping out. In Indiana University's 2007 High School Survey of Student Engagement, 73 percent of the respondents said, "I didn't like the school"; 61 percent said, "I didn't like the teachers"; and 60 percent said, "I didn't see the value in the work I was being asked to do." About 30 percent of the students indicated they were bored because of a lack of interaction with teachers, and 75 percent reported that the "material being taught is not interesting." Those students still in attendance are unchallenged, but they persist because it is the only game in town. Researchers have found that a high percentage of students dislike the place where they spend most of their learning time. —iStockphoto.com/Thomas VogelIn the most recent Canadian national study, conducted by the Canadian Education Association in 2006, student attendance dropped from 91 percent in 5th grade to 58 percent in secondary school. More significantly, intellectual engagement reportedly declined from 62 percent in 5th grade to 30 percent in high school. What on earth are we doing to the 70 percent who have not dropped out? Realistically, school is not an ideal environment for providing all the necessary opportunities for becoming an adult. Instead, school is a particular kind of environment, honoring individualism and cognitive development. It imposes dependence on, and withholds responsibility from, students. We have lost sight of young people's potential for responsibility, and it can be argued that in doing so we have sacrificed many opportunities for growth and usefulness. Teachers have difficulty providing meaningful, intrinsically interesting, and motivating experiences. Students see themselves as passive participants in an anonymous education system. This is learned powerlessness. Years ago, John I. Goodlad wrote in A Place Called School that high school classrooms "possessed a flat neutral emotional ambiance where boredom is a disease of epidemic proportion." Ben Levin added, in the paper I referenced at the top of this essay, that the source of the disease is a "prevalence of teacher talk, which remains an enduring feature of classrooms around the world." Despite what we now know about the power of learning through talking and doing, we persist in expecting students to learn by listening. The present disparity between teacher and student talk time is a profound hindrance to learning. Walking through the halls of high schools in both the United States and Canada, one invariably hears the steady drone of teachers' voices in room after room. The sound of boredom is deafening. We need to offer new kinds of schools and new kinds of classrooms. We need to revolutionize our basic high school structures: We need to tear apart the school day, the high school timetable, the school year, the four-year diploma. We need to rethink credit- and diploma-awarding authority, which need not be the sole purview of the high school. For instance, why can't we give this authority to nongovernment organizations and corporations willing to step up and offer academic credits in their workplaces relevant to the work of their institution? “We need to revolutionize our basic high school structures: We need to tear apart the school day, the high school timetable, the school year, the four-year diploma.”We need to explode the boundary between the school and the workplace. Just for starters, we need to create 24-hour, year-round high schools; a grade 7-14, or six-year, diploma; a grade 7/8 half-day school/work internship; dual-diploma programs with high schools/community colleges; and a North American retooling of the German apprenticeship system. In the United Kingdom, the remarkable innovation called Studio Schools has exploded. In them, disengaged 14- to 19-year-olds are assigned to project schools—e.g., television arts, food services—relevant to the designated theme of the studio, and in cooperation with local businesses. In these schools, work and learning are integrated. Studio Schools are sure to be a major feature of our 21st-century school system, but they cannot be the only one. We need a multiplicity of alternatives, incorporating mentorships, internships, and apprenticeships to forge a new vision of education in our rapidly changing, team-oriented society. We also need to look beyond high school to funding programs like Reading Recovery in 1st grade to reduce the eventual dropout rate in high school. We need to support and encourage emerging successful models, like the online Khan Academy, Flex schools in San Francisco that offer a hybrid online-and-in-school experience, and the Pathways to Education program in Canada that works to keep low-income students from dropping out. Likewise, we should back the schools working with the New Tech Network in the United States, which emphasize the use of more student-driven, project-based learning. New Tech schools focus on three principles: a project-based curriculum in which students work in teams; use of technology primarily, instead of focusing on textbooks and teachers; and a positive culture that promotes respect and responsibility. With any of the emerging models, we need to provide radical new social-learning structures for youths. Educator Deborah Bial's brilliant concept of the "posse" of multicultural teams of student-leaders who are intensively prepared for college success can be applied across a wide variety of student ages and settings, not just for university-bound scholarship students. The need to form small, interdependent learning groups or teams is an important adjunct to online learning. Whichever paths we take, classrooms have to change. If 70 percent of students are not intellectually engaged in classes, a revolution has to take place inside them. The time has come to stop tinkering with an antiquated model. We are delayed in our thinking because those who were able to suffer through or even thrive in this dying high school model have grown up to be teachers and lawyers and businesspeople who now advocate for reforms through the prism of their experiences. But the vast majority do not have the same fond memories of those halcyon high school days. For these students, the "high school experience" has failed. It is not only an economic issue, but a moral one of providing the very best opportunities for our young at all socioeconomic levels to flourish in a rapidly changing world. Long live the new high school! Jerry Y. Diakiw is a former superintendent of schools with the York Region Board of Education, in Ontario, Canada, and currently teaches about social justice and equity issues in classrooms, schools, and communities, in the faculty of education at York University, in Toronto. He can be reached at jdiakiw@edu.yorku.ca.

Why Teacher Evaluation Ratings Should Not Be Made Public

Several states are considering publishing the results of teacher evaluations for public view. This is already occurring in California and New York where specific evaluation ratings are published in select school districts. As a result of this recent trend the credibility of the evaluation process is diminished and teacher morale is declining. Revealing the quantitative scores of teacher evaluations is ill conceived and has many unintended consequences detrimental to the very nature of personnel evaluation. Publishing evaluation results erodes the trust that serves as a basis between educational professionals if evaluation is to serve its purpose as a constructive and useful tool.



The evaluation of employees in any organization is necessary to ensure that corporate goals and objectives are being met by both the organization and the individual employee. It serves as a basis for continuous improvement and employee retention. In many areas of private industry evaluation tools are correlated with salaries or bonuses. The key to employee productivity and satisfaction is directly correlated to performance reviews and relevant feedback. At the basis for all evaluation practices is the need for the individual to reflect upon his or her performance and measure it against the role they must play in the success of the organization as a whole. This is basically the same philosophy that serves the educational profession except that the measurements are more difficult to quantify due to educational outcomes associated with the complexities of measuring human growth and development in our profession.



There is a natural tension regarding the purpose for evaluation as it applies to decisions about professionalism, performance, advancement, accountability, tenure, and employee satisfaction in the complex arena of the delivery of educational services. If the true nature of evaluation is to assist the professional improve performance and demonstrate progress along a path that parallels organizational goals, then the relationship between the individual assigned the responsibility for evaluation and the person being evaluated is critical to the validity of the evaluation. In other words, if criticism or analysis of performance is designed to achieve a positive and progressive set of outcomes a unique and confidential relationship between participants must serve as a foundation for improvement.



The intimate nature of assessment and the collaborative relationship of the parties engaged in the evaluation process must be preserved in order to ensure that the commitment toward reaching both organizational and individual goals is maintained. This requires that all parties respect the process of evaluation and are committed to a non-defensive posture when it comes to formulating an honest discussion concerning the strengths and weaknesses of educators being evaluated. The ratings assigned to various areas of evaluation must not serve as roadblocks to conversations about how to improve performance.



Evaluation research indicates that the relationship between the parties engaged in evaluation will change dramatically if each time the person being observed is not assigned a rating. Here is where formative assessment is so critical to the evaluation process and why summary judgments about the summative assessment (rating) should be reserved until the end of a complete performance cycle. The separation of formative evaluation practices from ratings is the key to the productive relationship between all parties. In a collaborative process both parties are able to view the totality of variables not as threats but opportunities for constructive discussions and actionable items. Improvement occurs over a broad period of time when both parties agree to a dialogue about performance that sets a roadmap for continuous improvement on agreed upon goals and objectives.



In New Jersey public schools for example, many of the evaluation tools are heavily tipped with summative ratings all along the evaluation continuum. Every time a teacher is observed for example, a rating is anticipated and serves as a basis for that particular evaluation event. This does not serve the entire process very well. Why not use the observation as an opportunity to reflect on performance rather than rate performance?



A classroom visit by an evaluator serves at best only as a snapshot of performance: what is needed is an entire motion picture of overall effectiveness. This is what is fundamentally flawed with the entire process for current evaluation as it leaves little motivation for a constructive dialogue about the evaluation event and circumstances surrounding the act of teaching. Thus, the relationship between the evaluator (as manager) and teacher (as employee) often becomes contentious and laden with subjective overtones as overreliance on one or two “snapshots” become the fundamental basis for judging performance. If standardized test scores enter the picture the results cloud the evaluation picture even further. What ultimately compounds this process and deepens the divide between the employee and observer is the idea that these ratings will be published for view and public judgment.



Until educators establish a truly valid, reliable, and consistently credible process for teacher evaluation inclusive of multiple indicators and an extended time for observation, reflection, correction, improvement, and professional development to be embedded in the overall process, summative ratings must remain confidential. Absent any definitive rubrics for performance indicators and overall assessment the evaluation process will remain entirely a subjective process and less than perfect science.



To expose ratings of teachers to the general public given the lack of valid and reliable evaluation tools creates even more doubt about the worth and value of public education in American society. Not to mention the contribution to low morale and potential damage to the profession as a whole. Let us not contribute to the dialogue about what’s lacking in performance but instead give our educational professionals a chance to improve by maintaining a confidential and intimate relationship between the teacher and administrator in the evaluation process. And let us work collaboratively to shape new evaluation practices that provide more reliable results in the first place.

American Teacher Satisfaction may Impact Public Education's Future

A report published by Education Week on March 7, 2012, concerns itself with the results of a national survey sponsored by MetLife of the American Teacher. According to the results of this annual survey American teacher job satisfaction is at an alarming low point. Only 44% of teachers nationwide indicate that they are very satisfied with their work, down from almost 60% in 2009. This downward trend is more disturbing when considering the fact that 29% of teachers indicate they will leave the profession in the next five years. Almost a third of teachers nationwide say they experience a lack of job security due in part to the stressful conditions of the profession.




This decrease in professional satisfaction may be due to the overall economic conditions and the resulting cuts to education budgets nationwide. As resources and teaching manpower shrink to all time lows at a time when accountability measures have peaked at unrealistic high levels, it is no wonder that those most impacted would be experiencing some degree of stress. As class sizes increase at all levels due to reduction in force initiatives there appears to be a strong correlation between the changing conditions in America’s classrooms and the associated decrease in professional satisfaction by teachers. I would suggest that this cause and effect relationship is likely to extend itself to administrators and support personnel as well.



According to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the budget cuts and “demonization” of American teachers by politicians and media figures are major contributors to growing professional dissatisfaction. The national frenzy for “tax relief” in the name of reform is a direct attack on public employees and institutions like public schools. Politicians grab at gimmicks like charter schools and privatization to the very detriment of public schools in the name of saving tax dollars. The unintended consequence to the actions by high profile political personalities may result in the permanent undermining of American public education.



Teaching is far more complex than one can imagine who has never set foot in a classroom. It is a pure blend of art form, passion, common sense, nurturing, skill, content knowledge, motivation, and inspiration. The increasing demands placed upon the institution of public education have not been matched with dollars and resources to match. In fact, the school calendar and length of the school day has largely remained unchanged in the past century, in spite of a technological revolution and doubling of the world’s information base every two to three years.



It is enough of a demand that American teachers are charged with differentiating instruction in our classrooms to meet the needs of an exceedingly diverse population, but now we are asking them not just to teach America’s children but to raise them as well. The institution of American public education may just be at the breaking point. If political forces have the day, they will starve American public schools of the necessary resources needed to accomplish a rather formidable task. Given that teachers perform millions of small miracles each day in American schools, it will be a dark day for our nation’s schools if politicians manage to strangle the lifeblood out of public education: the financial resources needed to keep her alive.

Time to Take on Political Forces out to Discredit Public Education in America

(Excerpted from my AASA blog in February, 2012)
Attending the Third General Session of the AASA National Conference on Education in February of 2012, I was intrigued by the analysis presented concerning the goals of AASA and how the current political climate and the interests of political forces in our country appear to be in conflict with the basic core mission of American public education: To provide the basis for an informed citizenry in order to perpetuate our democratic society. There appears to be real disconnect between the more extreme positions of those ambitious politicians who would dismantle public education in lieu of privatization under the guise of “tax relief” and move their own political agenda forward and derail our primary purpose as educational leaders to offer equal opportunity to children from all walks of life. Legislators (who have little knowledge or even less capacity for understanding what the challenges of public education provide to educational leaders) have no claim in the race to improve American public education in my opinion. There is a hidden agenda to move forward with the private sector’s influence and many politicians use every effort to discredit the excellent work of American educators publically.

There appears to be an even greater political view that somehow denies the fact that we are the most diverse society that ever existed in the world, and that fails to acknowledge the great diversity that exists in our population. It is this rich variation in population that walks through the doors of American public schools each day seeking opportunity and validation for who they are. They are not one-size-fits-all cookie cutter children, nor are they quantifiable entities, rather they are individualistic, technologically savvy, and intense learners who present learning styles and needs that must be attended to by American teachers. It is time to scream loudly about the absurdity that politicians spin about the failing nature of public education and turn the media frenzy about the low percentage of “failing schools” into an intelligent and thoughtful discussion on the future of American public education. The fact is that the vast majority of American public schools are highly successful at offering quality educational services to the students that walk through the schoolhouse doors every day. That is why we are here today at AASA having the important conversation about American education and I am thankful that AASA is the voice of reason in this sea of uncertainty concerning the purpose and value of American public education. The future of our society depends on it.

Tenth Anniversary of No Child Left Behind

At the tenth anniversary of No Child Left Behind it is clear from my perspective that the federal government’s ambitious effort to set a national education agenda for America’s Public Schools has met with limited success.  The Washington “one size fits all” perspective on meeting the needs of millions of children in our nation’s schools was ill conceived at best by the former George W. Bush administration.  The punitive labels that were assigned to school districts nationwide as a result of the lack of compliance for making “Adequate Yearly Progress” under N.C.L.B. did much to discredit the positive strides American educators made in the past decade if not the past century.   

Let’s be clear about what we have accomplished as a society that creates educational opportunities for all of its children in a systematized and formal manner.  The facts are clear on the complexities that confront public education in America and the challenges we face in our attempts to teach the most diverse population of students in the world.   In the past century the United States of America has distinguished herself as a world economic power and social force for justice and human rights.  This did not occur by accident!  We are the world leader in higher education, human rights activism, and creative thinking as a result of a system of free and appropriate public education in all fifty states.

In the years since the Reagan administration decried the inadequacy of public education in America when A Nation at Risk was published America has transformed the world socially, economically, technologically, in the broadest possible global context.   American public education is largely responsible for our success as a nation.  It is time to recognize and celebrate that fact.  Are there matters that we have to address in order to take our system of free and public education to a higher level?  Undeniably yes.  But the federal government should not be administering to 100,000 public schools nor should it be determining whether each of those schools and its teachers are successful or failing.

In the words of former U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, “This decade’s experience has reminded us that Washington may be able to create a better environment for school improvement, but Washington cannot make schools better; only teachers, principals, parents, and communities can…it is time to move most decisions about whether teachers and schools are succeeding or failing out of Washington and back to states and communities.”  I could not agree with Mr. Alexander more on this important point.  Educational issues are determined locally and solved locally by dedicated professionals who are in the best position to know what it takes to nurture and teach children.  Just give communities the resources to accomplish this important task and get Washington politicians out of this equation once and for all.

A letter to Hopatcong, NJ, Teachers and Staff

Hopatcong administrators, teachers, and staff members:




Thank you for another year of dedicated service to the youth and families of our community. As I reflect on my 39th year in the education profession it is apparent that much has changed over the decades. We are at a transition point in the profession that has placed public school employees under a microscope as expectations rise each year. The remarkable thing is that our teachers, staff, and administrators all respond remarkably to the formidable challenges we now face.



It is with all sincerity that I express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for the devotion that you demonstrate every day to the young people we teach and the community we serve. As I visit each school (I try to get into a classroom each day) it is apparent to me that we are blessed in this educational community with exceptional faculty and staff members. I witness great teaching and wise counseling each and every time I visit one of our schools.



Perhaps my reflections are simply nostalgic manifestations of the wonderful relationships I experienced from my own years as a classroom teacher. My personal observations however are validated by the extensive research and work in teacher evaluation that was the subject of my dissertation at the College of William and Mary. It is abundantly clear that we employ some of the very best teachers and staff available. The result: our students are nourished and challenged to reach the highest possible individual outcomes, thanks to each of you.



I have said on more than one occasion that the whole of public education contains many components: academics, arts, activities, and athletics. We are about teaching the “whole child” and creating experiences that prepare our youth for life in an ever-changing democratic society. While social norms appear to be eroding at a rapid pace, the public schools in our community hold onto standards and values that appear to be almost non-existent in the greater society-at-large.



This makes the accomplishments of our teachers even more remarkable. Children come with many needs: developmental, intellectual, emotional, social, physical, medical, etc. We meet the challenges that confront us every day and somehow find a way to meet the demands placed upon us. No child is the same as another (think about how different siblings are) with every child demonstrating the need and capacity for nourishment in different and varied ways. Here is where the remarkable teaching has a profound impact: on the individual student as an individual.



I applaud the accomplishments of our classroom teachers, counselors, aides, staff members, coaches, administrators and everyone else who touches the lives of our youth. The New Year offers an opportunity for a renewed commitment to the profession we choose as our calling, our purpose, our challenge. In spite of the difficult economic times and the formidable challenges that we face, including the often unfair and biased media perceptions concerning public education in America, our schools are vibrant environments where the youth of our community thrive each day thanks to our teachers.



Please take the time this holiday season to reflect on the great work you are doing and to enjoy the blessings of your own families. Peace to each of you as the dawn of 2012 approaches and we bring closure to the year soon to pass. I look forward to working with you again as we continue on our educational journey in Hopatcong Borough.

Random Drug Searches at Hopatcong Schools Reveal No Drugs

Random and routine drug searches of Hopatcong Middle School and Hopatcong High School were conducted over a two day period December 6 and 7th, 2011. Both were initiated by school officials in collaboration with the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office. The random searches are constitutionally allowed in a public school setting following strict guidelines outlined in the New Jersey School Search Policy Manual. Drug dogs and handlers of the New Jersey State Police Canine Unit were employed for the search of classroom, hallways, lockers, and other common areas of the schools.



“These type of suspicionless searches by police officials are prudent exercises,” said superintendent of schools Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr. “and are designed to impress upon students and the community our commitment to a safe and secure school environment.”

One or two people in the entire school district were made aware of the search in advance according to Maranzano, in order to maximize the impact of the search. School Board members approved of the idea for the searches months in advance and were appraised of the search only after they were initiated and conducted.



All of the schools in New Jersey are prepared for such searches and are required to conduct emergency drills such as school lockdowns on a monthly basis by law. The students at the middle and high schools were sequestered to their classrooms throughout the search process, except where individual classrooms and student items searched. The inception of the search is constitutionally permissible based on the objective of the search as long as such searches are not excessively intrusive according to state guidelines.



“We stand ready to cooperate with local police or state police when the issue of student safety is at stake,” added Maranzano. “The facts support our effort to free schools from any item that represents a threat to the common health, safety, and welfare of students.” Maranzano said, “Generally speaking our students are well-behaved and conduct themselves with a high regard for the general welfare of other students in Hopatcong. From time-to-time it is necessary to demonstrate the authority and responsibility that school officials have to ensure the school climate is safe and secure which is the reason for such routine searches.”



No drugs were found at either school location.

Emergency Snowfall Presents Unusual Problems for Schools

Reflections on one of the most unusual weeks in Hopatcong Borough Public Schools by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr.




One of the many challenges for school administrators is how to respond to educational conditions under abnormal circumstances. The week of October 31-November 4, 2011, will certainly go down in the historical archives for Hopatcong Borough Public Schools as a highly abnormal event. The unprecedented snow storm of October 28-29, 2011, caused a significant amount of damage to the electrical infrastructure in the state and region and our school facilities were all severely impacted.



Due to the widespread power outages all of our schools went days without electricity causing us to cancel school. In fact, it was not until late in the week that the majority of our school buildings were brought back on the electrical grid. Due to the length of time without power we lost most of our food inventory in our school cafeterias. Additionally, many of our mechanical systems were compromised when the power “phased” out meaning that we lost motors, electrical contacts, and other critical components. All of our fire suppression systems lost the basic codes and required extensive reprogramming as did our alarm systems. The loss of phones, internet, file servers, and other technologically related equipment also presented challenges for us. Prior to bringing students or staff back into any of our buildings all of the above needed to be addressed.



There are many unintended consequences to an emergency of such magnitude and I only outlined a few. Consider that many of our children and family were forced to leave the Borough to find shelter in other towns (typically with family members residing nearby) or that our staff members were also displaced due to the lack of power in their homes. As of Friday, November 4, 2011, there were hundreds of families in Hopatcong still without power.



The fact that we were able to open four of five schools on Friday was nothing short of a major achievement for us given the multi-layered challenges we were confronted with.



The staff in Hopatcong did a remarkable job during the crisis. Neil Piro and his team had a lot of work to do at each school inspecting and testing all of our mechanical equipment The food supplies in our freezers needed to be disposed of and have been inventoried and replaced thanks to Ronnie Blewitt and her kitchen team. The tech team continues to asses our technology infrastructure and telephone systems as well at the alarm systems to ensure everything continues to operate. Kyle Bisignani stepped up to a strong challenge during this storm. Our Alert Now System served us very well as I received many compliments from citizens for making early decisions and communicating conditions in Hopatcong via the automated phone system.



I received excellent cooperation with the police, Chief Swanson, and Mayor Petillo during the week. There are lots of people to thank for their cooperation and collaboration during the crisis. The office staff was challenged to respond to deadlines, reports, compliance issues, and the usual workload as well as field multiple telephone calls from the pubic this past week. JoAnne Murray did a remarkable job of managing our office functions, and the finance staff distributed paychecks on Monday in the dark to employees who needed them.



The Patch and Star Ledger ran stories on Thursday that explained very clearly what the challenges were for our school district. My administrative team encouraged us to get out in front of the story via the media and this worked very well for us this week. Channel 12 was also a good vehicle for communicating the continued challenges that confronted us in Hopatcong as a result of the crisis.



We will submit a FEMA claim once all of the costs associated with the storm are documented in an attempt to recover most of the costs associated with the damages or food loss. However, the State Education Department of New Jersey will not grant us a waiver for time lost so we need to consider the impact on our school calendar as the year progresses without the support of the state officials. The School Board will consider all of the options available as we assess the impact on our calendar over the next few weeks and months.



I would like to thank the professional staff, administrators, teachers, workers, and citizens of Hopatcong for their perseverance and patience during the crisis. The fact that most people did not react emotionally and kept a steady perspective on the tasks and challenges we face speaks volumes about our educational team. Hopatcong is a resilient community and I am confident we will quickly move forward to promote the education of our children in this community. Each decision made during the past week had the health, safety and welfare of our children and employees as the basis for those decisions. I thank everyone for their support and understanding during these difficult times and am proud to be your leader as superintendent of schools.

League of Women Voters Want to Know about the Federal Role in Public Education

Responding to a few questions posed by the League of Women Voters in Sussex County, New Jersey, I thought it interesting to share my thoughts on the role of the federal government in public education. Many national candidates have stated their position on this matter so this is a non political response from an individual point of view:





The current role of the federal government in public education appears to be much too imposing (too large)in my opinion. Additionally, the requirements surrounding federal "standards" do not come with sufficient federal funding. In fact, most of the federal regulations are unfunded mandates that need to be dispensed with. The simple fact is that legislative or elected officials have no professional role in formulating educational practices locally and those decisions about school priorities need to be left to the states and their localities. Let me explain. We receive about 2% or less of our total funding from the federal government and yet they demand a disproportionate amount of time, resources, and effort from school personnel that actually harms our ability to deliver efficient and effective educational services to children.



There is no provision in the United States Constitution for public education and thus the federal presence in public education exists by virtue of the defined role in each state constitution. Therefore, there is no actual foundation for the federal government to create policy or impose controls with any system of free public education in any of the states. Public education is exclusively a state issue. If the federal government wants to run schools nationwide, it needs to adequately fund public education nationwide which it is not currently doing nor has it ever done.



Responding to the League of Women voters question about the role of public education in a democratic society: A quality public education does perpetuate a strong democratic and representative government...this was stated by John Dewey over a century ago as the purpose for public education in the progressive movement. The problem here is that the federal government has had little to do with the evolution of public education in America. Again, this has been a result of state priorities and state constitutional mandates, not federal. The federal role in public education has served to complicate and confuse educational priorities in the name of "standardization" or "accountability" and the hunger for national comparisons on test measurements that do not yet exist. Ronald Regan attempted to dismantle the Federal Department of Education during his term and fell just short of that goal...someone should revisit this as a cost savings measure and turn the responsibility for public education back to where it originated...at the state level. The less bureaucratic interference for public education at the federal level will in my opinion solve many problems that are best left to the various states to resolve.



The discussion should revolve around how states can run an efficient and effective system of public education based on their own definition of free and appropriate public education and the complicated funding formulas that each state must strive to improve in order to provide an adequate public education to its citizens. For example, the needs of Texas and New Mexico will vary differently from the need of New Hampshire and Maine in terms of clientele and priorities. What authority does the federal government have in establishing these priorities for the states, much less any legal basis for imposing legislation on each state for public education? None.



The economic times that we are experiencing call for some radical changes in thinking about the federal role in many areas. Education is one of them. Let each state decide how to educate its citizens and reduce the federal imposition into an area it has little expertise in.



That is my opinion, not the opinion of my school board or school district.

Schools Confront Economic Realities

The reductions in state aid to many school districts nationwide are taking a huge toll. The additional disappearance of Federal Stimulus Funds coupled with the end of the Education Jobs funding have created a “perfect storm” scenario for schools across America. The American Association of School Administrators has been following these trends for the past year and predicts that there is no immediate relief in sight for the educational portion of state budgets.



Reductions continue to put a strain on schools coping with reductions in personnel, activities, and services. The fear is that given the current state of the economy many school districts will continue to experience shortfalls from state contributions. This trend began in 2007 and is likely to continue well into the next few school years.



While many school districts are struggling to do more with less, several are beginning to confront the notion that they will have to do less with less (funding). The idea of cutting personnel, activities, and programs is a painful reality for school boards across the country. Philosophically speaking, most school board members would rather cut off an appendage rather than cut school programs. Not one of the Hopatcong School Board members wanted to cut academic programs, personnel, sports, activities, or other educational opportunities for children this past year during the budget development process.



Last year was particularly painful for a small district like Hopatcong, N.J. (2,200 students). A loss of 2.4 million dollars in state and local funding resulted in twenty-four less personnel to serve the needs of our tiny school district. This school year was less of a problem due to increased federal support mostly in the form of Education Jobs funding and ARRA funding. Both sources of federal dollars will be non-existent in the next budget cycle and further cuts may be in store for us.



Schools like Hopatcong, N.J., and others across the country are feeling the results of cuts at all levels. Typical cuts in personnel have reduced teacher to pupil rations resulting in much larger than desired class sizes across the overall spectrum. Additional cost saving measures include a reduction in activities and athletic programs, after-school programs, gifted programs, field trips, and certain salary freeze measures nationwide. A recent survey led by AASA concluded that 65% of superintendents said they eliminated jobs in 2010-2011, with almost three-quarters reporting that they will do the same during the coming school year.



The difficult times ahead for public education are certain to be correlated with the recession and economic conditions. With little relief in sight school superintendents and school boards will continue to struggle with undesirable and uncomfortable cuts to personnel and programs. It is hard to see the “light at the end of the tunnel” from a funding perspective and this is one of those moments in time no one wants to have to endure for very long.

An Emerging Teacher Quality

As classrooms in America struggle to accommodate increasing numbers of students and teachers adjust to the expanding variation in student learning styles it occurred to me that an additional quality of effective teaching will quickly emerge in the coming years: The ability to teach and manage large numbers of students.




I have long been associated with some remarkable educational leaders from my days at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. In fact my dissertation chair, Dr. James Stronge, published a book for the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, The Qualities of Effective Teachers,(ASCD, 2002) In this wonderful resource James presents in Part I What It Means To Be An Effective Teacher, and in Part II Teacher Effectiveness: Resources You Can Use. Drawing upon many valid and highly regarded sources, Dr. Stronge presents educational colleagues with a blueprint for effective teaching behaviors and a realistic profile of the characteristics of excellent teaching.



The research on teacher preparation, intellectual ability and aptitude, attainment of certifications and specializations, content knowledge, experience and effectiveness, affective characteristics, caring and communicating, knowledge of students as individuals, enthusiasm and motivation, personalization of learning, organization in managing instruction, response to student behaviors, academic interaction, group instructional strategies, differentiation, and high expectations are all discussed in depth by the author. I have used this book time and time again in my leadership role as an educator and found the qualities described to be informative and invaluable. In performing my duties as a school superintendent I often question potential teaching candidates on these qualities to assess their understanding, experience, and preparedness for the classroom.



Most recently, due to the difficult financial conditions confronting America’s public schools, the educational journals and research reports have reported upon the increase in student-to-teacher ratios and most notably the spike in larger class sizes across the K-12 educational spectrum. These reports lead me to believe that one of the effective teaching qualities those of us responsible for hiring and mentoring new teachers will be the ability to teach and manage large numbers of students.



Effective teachers appear to be in control of multiple variables simultaneously and add to that a new dimension of increased numbers of students and the very dynamic of effective teaching practices are put to the test. Years of research points to a strong correlation between low student-to-teacher ratios as an indicator of student success. Will the emerging variable of higher student-to-teacher ratios mean that students will experience less success? This is a concern all of us in leadership positions now consider as key educational decisions will need to be weighed carefully as budgets shrink and resources disappear.



The teacher who masters the ability to design and deliver effective instructional practices for larger classes may have a marketable skill in the new reality of public education: increased class sizes. Future research of a longitudinal nature may have to be conducted to prove this variable true, but I am guessing that the teacher who proves to be particularly effective with higher numbers of students will be in demand in the not so far future of America’s public schools.

Solar Initiative in Hopatcong Schools Reaches Final Phase

A meeting of the Hopatcong Borough Zoning Board on June 8, 2011, will set the stage for the installation of a major Public School Solar Initiative scheduled to be operational by the fall of 2011.




The Hopatcong Borough Public Schools will install a solar array in partnership with SP-One, the Spiezle Group, and Sun Edison. The SP-One Group is a leader in the alternative energy arena with over 25 years in energy development and extensive experience with the Federal and local governments. Some of the public sector clients are the United States Department of Defense, United States Department of Agriculture, and the City of Philadelphia. In the private sector clients include IKEA, George Washington University Hospital, UPS, Mobil Oil, Pathmark, and many others. Sun Edison is the largest solar energy service provider in North America and among the fastest growing international solar companies worldwide.



The proposed solar installation on property owned or controlled by the Hopatcong Borough Board of Education will include three Solar Photovoltaic Power Plants interconnected to the Hopatcong School Board, Hopatcong High School, Hopatcong Middle School, Durban Avenue School, Tulsa Trail School, and the Maintenance Complex.



The system will generate over two million Kilowatt Hours of electricity per year. The cost savings will reduce the Board of Education’s cost of electricity from $0.15 to $0.05 per Kilowatt Hour. The annual real savings will be about $175,000 per year or in excess of $3.3 million dollars over the fifteen year period, with no increase in the cost for electricity.



In addition to the savings on the overall cost of electricity, the solar project will provide $585,000 in new or replacement roofing for Durban Avenue School and Hopatcong Middle School. A science curriculum component will be included in future years that includes a job training element. “The overall adaption and conversion to solar power represents a major step forward for the Hopatcong School and Community,” stated Charles Maranzano, Superintendent, “ This project places Hopatcong, New Jersey, in the forefront of progressive School Districts.” Neil Piro is the Hopatcong Schools Facilities Project Manager and Terry Sierchio is the School Business Administrator.

Cuts to Public Education May be Too Deep

TRENTON:  NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER REPORT— State lawyers call last month’s report on school funding cuts a useless and narrow-minded assessment, but advocates for poor students say it’s an incisive condemnation of New Jersey’s failure to support its neediest kids.


The two sides made these arguments in new briefs filed today in the latest installment of the long-running Abbott vs. Burke school funding saga. Both sides are gearing up for the April 20 hearing before the state Supreme Court in a case with far-reaching consequences for the state’s schools and budget.

The Newark-based Education Law Center asks the state’s highest court to force Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers to spend more on schools. It says the state underfunded schools by $1.6 billion last year and violated the state constitution’s mandate to "provide a thorough and efficient system" of public schools.

The state has pleaded poverty, saying its precarious fiscal situation prevents it from fully funding the formula approved by the court in 2009. It also says the formula is overly generous since it was created right before the economic crash.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:



• N.J. treasurer lists range of cuts if Supreme Court rules against Christie in schools funding case

• N.J. battle intensifies over funding for themed charter schools

• Christie recruits former N.J. attorney general, Supreme Court justice to defend cutbacks in school funding

• Christie says he's confident about convincing N.J. Supreme Court the state can't afford full aid for schools

• N.J. teachers, labor leaders, parents argue for more education funding at Assembly budget hearing

• N.J. authority reveals approval process for $500M in construction projects at 10 schools

The fault line in today’s briefs is the report from Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne, who was asked by the Supreme Court to study the impact of Christie’s budget cuts before justices made a decision in the case. Doyne concluded they disproportionately harmed poor districts, undercutting the state’s argument that funding cuts had been spread fairly.

After the report was released, the state asked Peter Verniero, the former New Jersey attorney general and Supreme Court justice, to lead its legal team. The brief filed by the state today criticizes Doyne’s report as myopic — it did not consider education policies like teacher tenure or the state’s overall fiscal situation — and having "no basis for any real conclusions."

The state also said the review is incomplete because student performance reviews won’t be available until next January, preventing the court from determining whether students were actually hampered by lower funding.

The Education Law Center, by contrast, heaped praise on Doyne’s report, saying it accurately diagnosed spending cuts as a "grave constitutional violation ... The resulting harm to New Jersey school children ... is severe and immediate."

More than one-third of all school districts statewide, which educate nearly three-fourths of all at-risk students, are funded below the formula’s standards, the Law Center said. Schools have cut teaching positions, increased class sizes and reduced student programs.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case could have drastic consequences for the state budget, and Democrats and Republicans alike are bracing for the outcome.

If the court orders more funding, Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said the state may need to gouge funding for things like Medicaid, property-tax relief and municipal aid.

Some Democrats are pushing for a "millionaires tax" on the state’s highest earners to provide more school funding. Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) criticized the idea, saying the tax would fail to cover all the funding the court may require. "Do the math," he said. "Where are you going to get the rest of the money?"

Even some Democrats who say Christie’s school funding cuts are unconstitutional are apprehensive about the Supreme Court’s decision.

"I hope the court interprets it fairly, and if the governor is right, then we move forward," Assembly Budget Chairman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden) said. "If he’s wrong, then we have work to do."

New Jersey Star Ledger, April 11, 2011. Jarrett Renshaw contributed to this report.