Newark Mayor Ras Baraka speaks at a city education summit: “”Our kids come to school because of a deficit because of poverty,” Baraka said. “We fighting for longer school days…because our kids need more time on tasks than other peoples’ kids.”

Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson took another hit this week when state-appointed arbitrators denied  two more tenure charges.

NJ Spotlight asks, “How was the first year of New Jersey’s new teacher evaluation system?” Answer: “Depends on whom you ask.” Patricia Wright of the NJ Principal and Supervisors Association said that “ her association recently completed a survey of its members after the first year and found some improvement in the second year. ‘I think the numbers are getting more positive in terms of what they feel about (the system),” she said. “But there are still real capacity and time issues.’”

Star Ledger:  “Figuring its students lose enough instruction time due to standardized tests, Glen Ridge High School is eliminating midterm and final examinations, according to a published report.”

Good news from Trenton Public Schools, reports the Trenton Times:  “For the first time in years, the Trenton school district is reporting an on-time graduation rate of more than 50 percent for 2014.”

A retired veteran  teacher from Paterson describes “utter chaos” at  John F. Kennedy High School.

In an editorial in the Wall St. Journal, Success Academies leader Eva Moskowitz responds to critics who claim that the “successes posted by our schools and other charters result from cherry-picking the best students—and that since the harder-to-educate students are dumped in district schools, any academic gains by charters are offset by losses in district schools.” She also explains how co-locations of charter and non-charter public schools in the same building helps all kids. (Try to ignore the awkward and arguably offensive analogy to Germany‘s post-WWII split.)

The New York Times: “The federal Department of Education announced preliminary rules on Tuesday requiring states to develop rating systems for teacher preparation programs that would track a range of measures, including the job placement and retention rates of graduates and the academic performance of their students.”

Rishawn Biddle at Dropout Nation analyzes the National Education Association’s 2013-2014 LM-2 filing. Former president Dennis van Roekel was paid a salary of $541,632 last year, a 32% increase over his previous year’s salary. New president Lily Eskelson Garcia got a measly $345,728.  “Altogether, the NEA’s big three were paid $1.2 million in 2013-2014, a nine percent increase over the previous fiscal year.”

Great editorial from Robert Reich on “the boundary separating white Anglo upscale school districts from the burgeoning non-white and non-Anglo populations in downscale communities.“  Money quote: “Such schools are “public” in name only. Tuition payments are buried inside high home prices, extra taxes, parental donations, and small armies of parental volunteers.” 

ICYMI, here’s my column for NJ Spotlight on related matters.