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Bill Bennett: Trump, DeVos get it right — Feds’ role in your child’s education is shrinking. Finally!

Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the Department of Education

 

By William J. Bennett

Published May 11, 2017
Fox News

Students of history know that governments rarely give up power without a fight. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, those who have been intoxicated with power never willingly abandon it. Yet, last year, the federal government passed a new education law which returns a significant amount of power and decision-making authority to states, districts and schools.

The bi-partisan passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act creates a unique and exciting opportunity for improving American education. The law explicitly bars the Department of Education from dictating or influencing standards or curricula at the federal level, and states and districts have a wide range of new liberties when it comes to developing accountability systems, testing and content.

But with this newfound freedom from Washington comes a newfound responsibility for excellence at the state and district level. We cannot confuse local control with laissez faire. State and local leaders must embrace this opportunity and lift expectations, not relax them.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/11/bill-bennett-trump-devos-get-it-right-feds-role-in-your-childs-education-is-shrinking-finally.html

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New Jersey Teachers Facing Layoffs

REA, ridgewoood teachers
May 10,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, whats this New Jersey school districts laying off teachers ? Perhaps the day of reckoning may be coming .
Its started in 2015 with Paterson School district laying off people ,now this year both Lakewood and Bayonne . Wherev there is smoke there is fire ?
Bayonne school board votes to lay off nearly 300 district employees
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Op-Ed: NJEA Stifles Much-Needed Debate on ‘Last In, First Out’

Ridgewood Teachers

By Guest Post • 05/08/17 3:38pm

By Matthew Frankel

It is no secret that both in policy and politics, the Goliath in New Jersey is the leadership of the New Jersey Education Association.

Through powerful lobbying efforts in Trenton, massive investments in political action committees, statewide marketing campaigns and an army of lawyers stationed throughout the state, the NJEA spends tens of millions of dollars each year to control the discourse and debate within our state. Even in this day and age, facts matter, and these are facts: The money the NJEA leadership spends is simply unmatched, and it is a significant reason that New Jersey’s education status quo has not changed in decades.

https://observer.com/2017/05/op-ed-njea-stifles-much-needed-debate-on-last-in-first-out/

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NEW JERSEY’S COURT SYSTEM CONTINUES TO DRIVE EDUCATION POLICY

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JOHN MOONEY | MAY 4, 2017

Yesterday’s dismissal of the Newark ‘LIFO’ case and recent decisions continue to show how the court is a force in education in Garden State

Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson.

For all the attention on the State House in driving education policy, New Jersey’s courts yesterday continued to show their long and storied influence on some of the hottest public school issues.

In the more prominent case, state Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson abruptly dismissed a closely watched lawsuit contesting the state’s infamous teacher seniority rules.

In a clear win for the teachers unions and a blow to the school-reform movement and the Christie administration, Jacobson spoke from the bench, saying the plaintiffs — a half-dozen Newark families, with the help of a national advocacy group — had not proven the “last in, first out” policy had harmed their children.

“I am not disputing the importance of teacher effectiveness in the classroom, but the complaint is completely devoid of facts,” Jacobson said in a lengthy and sternly worded opinion.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/05/03/new-jersey-s-court-system-continues-to-drive-education-policy/

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Sweeney Pledges More Aid for “Underfunded NJ Schools”

Sweeney & Prieto

By Salvador Rizzo • 05/02/17 12:47pm

Senate President Steve Sweeney drew a line in the sand over school funding on Tuesday, saying his house would only pass a budget that shifts state dollars to underfunded urban and suburban districts this year.

Gov. Chris Christie has drafted a $35.5 billion spending plan for fiscal 2018 — $13.8 billion of which would go to schools — and lawmakers are reviewing his plan before the July 1 deadline to enact the budget.

https://observer.com/2017/05/sweeney-pledges-more-aid-for-underfunded-nj-schools/?utm_campaign=new-jersey-politics&utm_content=2017-03-05-9525717&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

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OPINION: WHY I SUPPORT BETSY DEVOS

Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the Department of Education

DICK ZIMMER | APRIL 17, 2017

The issue is school choice. The opposition is the teachers unions

Shortly after Betsy DeVos was sworn into office as U.S. Secretary of Education, I was invited, as a trustee of Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), to meet with her at the Department of Education. I accepted the invitation with pleasure.

When I posted a picture of myself with DeVos on Facebook, it got some likes from conservative friends and some acerbic comments from others, including my sister, who asked me, “When did you start drinking the Kook-Aid?” I replied to her that I’ve supported school choice for decades and was the only member of the New Jersey Congressional delegation to vote for the first school-choice floor amendment in 1994.

Dick Zimmer and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos

I am a product of New Jersey public schools, K–12, as are my parents and my children, but ever since I read Milton Friedman’s proposal for school vouchers in “Capitalism and Freedom” as a college freshman, I have been convinced that parents should be allowed to have the government pay for the school they choose for their children, whether it be traditional public, public charter, private, or religious.

There is no reason why all parents shouldn’t be given this choice, but the stakes are particularly high for the poorest families in the inner cities, including those in New Jersey where, despite tens of billions of dollars of supplemental state funding, traditional public schools have abjectly failed to prepare several generations of children for college or a career.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/04/16/opinion-why-i-support-betsy-devos/

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Why N.J. teacher attendance data doesn’t add up

Ridgewood Teachers

By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 09, 2017 at 7:00 AM, updated April 09, 2017 at 9:47 AM

TRENTON — None of Piscataway Township’s teachers took a sick day last year, faculty at one Sussex County school were absent for nearly half of the year, and teachers at another school showed up only 10 percent of the time.

Those unlikely scenarios all played out last school year, at least according to data released in the state’s school report cards.

New Jersey for the first time last week released statistics for how often teachers and support staff miss school, showing that the vast majority of teachers are in the classroom more than 90 percent of the time.

But the faculty attendance rates, released amid a national push to judge schools on more than just test scores, also include a series of implausible statistics and misleading mistakes, school officials say.

https://www.nj.com/education/2017/04/69_nj_schools_claim_no_teachers_took_sick_days_las.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured

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Newark schools superintendent: Why charters succeed | Opinion

School Choice by ArtChick

Posted on April 2, 2017 at 9:15 AM

Y STAR-LEDGER GUEST COLUMNIST

By Chris Cerf

I serve as superintendent of the Newark Public Schools and previously served as the state commissioner of education. In both capacities, I have defined my goal in precisely the same way: to do everything possible to assure that every child, regardless of birth circumstances, has access to a free, high-quality public education that launches him or her into adulthood prepared for success.

The most striking aspect of Charles Wowkanech’s opinion article in The Star-Ledger (“Charter schools threaten diversity”) is that he is indifferent to this basic and, in my view, inarguable goal. Stuck in the same ideological quagmire that has consumed so many others, his view is that public charter schools are bad and traditional public schools are inherently good. In service of that argument, he then proceeds to misstate a rather remarkable array of objectively provable facts about public education in New Jersey.

https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/04/newark_schools_superintendent_why_charters_succeed.html

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Mercer County Superior Court judge to Hear Oral Arguments on Teachers Union Motions to Dismiss LIFO Lawsuit

Ridgewood EA teachers protest

file photo

Oral arguments before a Mercer County Superior Court judge are scheduled for May 3

March 31,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, Six Newark parents yesterday opposed motions to dismiss HG v. Harrington, the lawsuit they filed last November challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law. The motions to dismiss the case were filed earlier this month by local and national teachers unions, who intervened as defendants in the case last December. Oral arguments on the motions to dismiss are scheduled for 2pm on May 3 before the Mercer County Superior Court. Defendants from Newark Public Schools and the New Jersey Department of Education did not move to dismiss the case.

“The teachers unions clearly are not looking out for students’ best interests,” said Kathleen Reilly, attorney with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, one of the law firms representing the Newark parents pro bono. “With education budget deficits in the tens of millions of dollars, the court urgently needs to hear these parents’ concerns about laws that require schools to keep ineffective teachers while letting effective ones go. If students’ educational rights are valued, these laws cannot stand.”

In their answer to the lawsuit, defendants from the Newark Public Schools overwhelmingly conceded that the LIFO law harms students, acknowledging that enforcement of LIFO in Newark will remove quality teachers, which leads to lower test scores, lower high school graduation rates, lower college attendance rates, and sharply reduced lifetime earnings. They also admit that the current practice of keeping ineffective teachers on the district payroll, including those in a pool of “educators without placement sites” (EWPS) is harmful and unsustainable, and that the EWPS pool would be wholly unnecessary were it not for LIFO.

To learn more about the parent-led lawsuit to end LIFO in New Jersey, please go to edjustice.org/nj. All legal filings related to HG v. Harrington are available online here.

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In risky bet, N.J. teachers’ union campaigns to oust Senate President Sweeney

Ridgewood Teachers

file photo

Updated: MARCH 27, 2017 — 6:00 AM EDT

by Andrew Seidman, Trenton Bureau  @AndrewSeidman |  ASeidman@phillynews.com

TRENTON — Gov. Christie has antagonized New Jersey’s largest teachers’ union since he took office in 2010, once declaring on television that the national organization deserved a punch in the face.

The union has struggled under Christie’s eight-year governorship, but as the Republican prepares to leave office next year, the New Jersey Education Association is punching back at someone it sees as Christie’s chief collaborator: Senate President Stephen Sweeney.

“We’re looking for a new governor and a new Senate president,” Wendell Steinhauer, the group’s president, said in an interview.

https://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/NJ-teachers-union-is-trying-to-topple-Senate-President-Stephen-Sweeney.html

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NJ teacher loses license after trying to sell weapons to terrorists

Iraq ISIS Abu Wahe 2941936b

By Adam Hochron March 23, 2017 5:26 PM

A New York man serving 15 years for selling weapons he believed would be sent to terrorists overseas will not have his New Jersey teaching certificates waiting for him when he is released.

Theophilis “Mike” Burroughs, of Newark, was sentenced in 2015 after being convicted of first-degree criminal sale of a firearm, money laundering and tax fraud.

Robert Johnson, the Bronx district attorney at the time, said Burroughs had agreed to sell 13 weapons including assault rifles and hand guns, and had also bought 27,000 cartons of what he believed were untaxed cigarettes during exchanges with undercover officers. In addition to the weapons, he also had offered to sell explosives, night-vision goggles and illegal drugs.

Bronx District Attorney’s Office

Johnson said Burroughs believed the officers he was dealing with were connected to the terrorist organization Hamas, and had expressed support for them and other terror groups.

“It is particularly disturbing when someone who is tasked with educating our young commits crimes,” Johnson said at the time. “It is more disturbing that he did so complicit in the belief he was promoting terrorism

Read More: NJ teacher loses license after trying to sell weapons to terrorists | https://nj1015.com/nj-teacher-loses-license-after-trying-to-sell-weapons-to-terrorists/?trackback=tsmclip

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FREEDOM OF SCHOOL CHOICE IS A CHANCE AT THE AMERICAN DREAM

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RUTHVEN HANEEF AUGUSTE | MARCH 10, 2017

Those who obstruct choice are more interested in protecting their special interests than in protecting the interests of all children to access a quality education

Ruthven Haneef Auguste

Earlier this week I was in Trenton with other public charter school parents to meet with legislators, advocate for the opportunity to choose a school that best fits the needs of our children, and commit to a year of action supporting education equality for all. Whether you’re a charter, district, or private school parent, we can all agree we want the best for our kids no matter where you choose to send them to school.

The opposition to school choice has regularly used certain words for parents in New Jersey’s worst-performing school districts when they have the audacity to choose to send their kids to public charter schools — “pawn” and “parasite” come to mind. However, in no area of life is less choice good, and it is upsetting that these adults, many who presumably have children of their own, seem determined to take away opportunity and choice from parents like me.  I don’t presume to think I have enough information to form an opinion of how schools should be run in their towns and would guess things are vastly different in Newark where I work and live. We have amazing schools, terrible schools, and everything in the middle, which is why I wanted to be able to make the choice of where my children go to school.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/03/09/op-ed-freedom-of-school-choice-is-a-chance-at-the-american-dream/

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N.J. just made it easier to become a certain type of teacher

fast times at ridgemont high pic

By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 07, 2017 at 8:45 AM, updated March 07, 2017 at 11:42 AM

TRENTON — Facing a shortage of bilingual teachers in its public schools, New Jersey has made it easier to become one.

The state Board of Education this month approved what education officials called a “slight relaxation” to the score teachers need on the written proficiency test for bilingual teachers, a move officials expect will boost the number of bilingual educators by 10 to 15 percent.

The change applies only to prospective teachers for students learning English as their second language. It does not affect foreign language teachers for native English speakers.

Despite the lower qualifications, the state isn’t expecting any decline in the quality of its bilingual teachers, said Mark Biedron, president of the Board of Education.

“I am confident that teachers coming through the program will be highly proficient,” Biedron said.

 

https://www.nj.com/education/2017/03/nj_lowers_teacher_qualification_score.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured

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The 20 N.J. school districts most dependent on state funding

money-down-the-toilet-zaw2

By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on February 28, 2017 at 7:15 AM, updated February 28, 2017 at 7:53 AM

TRENTON — When Gov. Chris Christie delivers his 2018 budget address on Tuesday, New Jersey school officials will be listening especially closely.

How Christie will address education funding is the biggest question about his final budget, leaving administrators bracing for the possibility of funding cuts.

There’s some concern Christie could follow through with the “Fairness Formula,” a plan he unveiled last summer to give every district $6,599 per student regardless of income or other needs. Though many education groups are convinced Christie won’t do that, they still don’t have high hopes for increases in school funding.

“I’m not expecting any good news in the budget,” said Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators.

https://www.nj.com/education/2017/02/the_20_nj_school_districts_most_reliant_on_state_f.html#incart_river_home_pop

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10 suspended following audit into Englewood school transcripts

Dunce-cap

Michael W. Curley, Jr. , Staff Writer, @MCurleyGannettPublished 11:35 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2017 | Updated 1 hour ago

ENGLEWOOD — The Dwight Morrow High School principal and nine other high-level district employees were suspended with pay Thursday night after a review by an independent consultant turned up more than 3,000 graduation credit and grade changes in the previous year.

Superintendent Robert Kravitz read a letter from the Department of Education at Thursday’s meeting saying the Office of Fiscal Accountability and Compliance will conduct a review of the district’s high school transcript records with respect to allocation of credit hours. Later in the meeting, he said the 3,000 credit and grade changes were considered “extremely high” by the state.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/englewood/2017/02/16/10-suspended-following-audit-into-englewood-school-transcripts/97851908/