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QOD: Annual Standardized Testing is a “Moral Imperative”

January 16, 2015

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January 20, 2015

By Laura Waters at January 18, 2015

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Newark Mayor Ras Baraka wrote a letter demanding Superintendent Cami Anderson’s resignation. And the Star-Ledger asked N.J. Education Commissioner David Hespe five questions about Newark Public Schools’ performance and future leadership.

Also, Anderson penned a piece in the Huffington Post that discusses efforts to “ensure that education systems equip all students with the skills to access their dreams and not replicate cycles of systemic oppression.” She notes some progress in Newark:

While we admittedly have considerable distance to cover before reaching the goal of a 100 percent graduation rate, we are proud of our progress to-date. The percentage of graduating students who also passed both sections of our graduation exam has increased by 11 percentage points. Last year, 68 percent of our students graduated — up from 54 percent in 2009. This rise is particularly notable because it was achieved while reducing the number of dropouts by 500 students since 2011, applying more rigorous metrics than most districts and yielding 7 percent more actual graduates.

Star-Ledger: “ Gov. Chris Christie name checked the city of Camden nearly a dozen times during his state of the state address Tuesday, applauding changes at the school district and police department, as well as the recent economic development efforts over the past year.”

The Press of Atlantic City reviews Gov. Christie’s plug for school vouchers during his State of the State speech.

The leaders of five Hoboken charter schools challenge a Jersey Journal editorial:

[W]e can assure Mr. Morgan and the rest of the state’s taxpayers that charter schools are not just a good financial investment, they also provide an innovative, topnotch education to hundreds of children across our region...Charters across the state get, on average, only about 71 percent of per-pupil funding or about $6,000 less than traditional public schools. Put it this way: At Jersey City’s Golden Door Charter School, if students brought with them the full 90 percent of funding the law allows, it would add almost $3 million to the school’s budget every year.

The Asbury Park Press looks to N.J.’s charter schools as models to improve Asbury Park Public Schools.

Patricia Wright, executive director of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, asks New Jerseyans to give the new standardized PARCC tests a chance and notes that “it must also be acknowledged that the actual length of time students will spend taking the PARCC assessments will be longer than the time spent taking the NJASK or HSPA. However, if the promise of PARCC is achieved, the scope and quality of data that educators, students and parents will receive from this effort will justify this investment in time.”

New Jersey School Boards Association: “The respected periodical Education Week recently issued the 19th edition of Quality Counts, its annual report on state-level efforts to improve public education, and once again New Jersey ranks near the top of the nation. This year, the Garden State finished second with a grade of B and a score of 85.5. (Massachusetts scored first with a grade of B and a score of 86.2; Maryland and Vermont were ranked immediately below New Jersey.)”

NJ Spotlight: “Although the details are still to be worked out, a package of bills to improve teacher preparation and induction in the state will be among the priorities in the Assembly this spring, said the Democrats’ top legislator on education.

State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly‘s education committee, said he hoped to have a package passed by the summer. He said the specifics are still being discussed, but they were along the lines of a proposal unveiled this fall by a coalition of groups led by the state’s teachers union that sought to tighten requirements on teacher training and support once on the job.”

Spotlight also has an interview with Save Our Schools-NJ founder Julia Sass Rubin, cross-posted at NJTV: “A complaint filed this month with the state ethics commission by the New Jersey Charter Schools Association accuses Julia Sass Rubin – co-author of a report that highlights what it says are wide gaps in the number of high-needs children in charter schools and traditional public schools – of using her Rutgers title to make it appear that the university sanctions her opinions.”

The Record: “Middle and high school students throughout the state may start school later as a result of a measure recently passed by a Senate committee calling for a government study on the matter.”