JULY 15, 2015, 7:52 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2015, 11:01 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Most teachers across North Jersey got high marks under the state’s evaluation system, although officials cautioned that the system, which is in its first year, is too new to draw conclusions.
Overall, about two dozen districts in Bergen and Passaic counties rated all of their teachers as “effective” or “highly effective,” which are the top ratings out of four categories. Most other districts had a few in the bottom categories of “partially effective” or “ineffective” – ratings that state officials say will prompt intervention and added support for those teachers.
Only Paterson, the region’s lone state-controlled district, had a sizable number of teachers who were rated less than effective, with 16 percent of its nearly 2,000 instructors falling behind, according to state data.
The state released teacher evaluation data Wednesday for the 2013-14 school year, but information for individual schools was mostly absent because of privacy rules designed to hide the identity of teachers. A few small districts also had no data. The ratings were based largely on observations by administrators, but also on student performance on tests and on student improvement.
Peter Shulman, assistant education commissioner and chief talent officer, has said the results from the first year of the new system, called AchieveNJ, were not enough to identify trends or make sweeping conclusions about the state’s teachers. The information, he said, would be used to help the 2,900 teachers who were found to be struggling.
Teacher-Evaluation ratings released for schools around the state
Three years after New Jersey’s tenure-reform law was signed, the Christie administration has publicly released the first results of the new teacher-evaluation system, district by district, school by school. (Mooney/NJ Spotlight)
Can’t wait for the “Union Thugs” Comments.
“Only Paterson, the region’s lone state-controlled district, had a sizable number of teachers who were rated less than effective”…..It is unclear if that is because the state controlled system is more honest in its evaluations, or if the state controlled system hires less effective teachers. Considering all the money the state (taxpayers!) put into Paterson, this is an important distinction.