New Jersey’s Plan for Education Reform

We're working with state leaders to pass laws that will give New Jersey's schools the power to identify, reward, and retain great educators.

Legislators, along with the governor, have proposed legislation that will reform teacher tenure, establish more robust teacher and principal evaluation systems, stop layoffs of effective teachers, and raise effective teachers' salaries.

Specifically, the bills will make the following changes:

 

Save Great Teachers

When teacher layoffs are necessary, great teachers should remain in the classroom. Our children deserve to keep their best teachers.

With the current fiscal reality, New Jersey is at risk of losing some of their best teachers to layoffs. Currently, layoffs are based on seniority, an outdated and bureaucratic practice known as "Last in, First Out" (LIFO). LIFO means that the last teacher hired has to be the first teacher fired, regardless of how good teachers are. This harms students and teachers in three ways:

  1. Research indicates that when districts with LIFO conduct layoffs, they end up firing some of their most highly effective educators.
  2. LIFO policies increase the number of teachers that districts have to lay off. Because junior teachers make less money, districts have to lay off more of them in order to fill their budget gaps, causing more disruption to more classrooms.
  3. LIFO disproportionately and negatively impacts the highest need schools. These schools have larger numbers of new teachers, who are the first to lose their jobs in a layoff.

Real reform would eliminate LIFO and instead require layoffs of teachers and administrators to be based on effectiveness as determined by an evaluation system. S2881 proposes to end LIFO entirely, and "Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act" (TEACHNJ), legislation sponsored by Democratic State Senator Teresa Ruiz, would end LIFO for all teachers hired after the bill becomes law.

 

Fair and Robust Evaluations

At least 50% of teachers' and principals' evaluations should be based on how much academic progress their students make.

Focusing on teacher quality does not mean we believe teachers are the problem. They are the most powerful part of the solution. An effective teacher is the most important ingredient to a student's success. Because of this, fair and robust evaluations are critical.

Real reform would require establishment of fair evaluation systems that are neither arbitrary nor solely driven by test scores, but that do base at least 50% of the evaluation on growth in student achievement. S2881 proposes an evaluation system with multiple rating tiers and a requirement that at least 50% of the evaluation be based on student growth.

 

Reform Tenure

Job security shouldn't come before the interests of students.

Teacher tenure serves to protect ineffective teachers, not students.  It essentially gives teachers a job for life, regardless of their performance, and prevents districts from being able to dismiss teachers who are consistently ineffective and unable to improve. When a few teachers are not performing in the classroom and are damaging students' academic progress, the principal and the district are powerless to remove them.

With federal due process laws in place, tenure is no longer necessary to protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal.  With your support, New Jersey can be among the first states to end or disempower this unfair practice.

S2881 proposes to make tenure available only to effective and highly effective educators.  More importantly, if an educator is evaluated as ineffective after one year or partially effective for two years, tenure would be revoked. TEACHNJ proposes to make tenure available after three years of effective ratings and revoke tenure after two years of ineffectiveness.

 

Reward Effective Teachers

Teachers deserve professional-level salaries, and the more effective they are the more they should be paid.

Teachers should not feel like widgets on an assembly line, where no matter what they do they get paid the same. Extra commitment, hard work and, most importantly, results should be rewarded.

Real reform would enable districts to compensate teachers and administrators based on their performance and other important needs. S2881 proposes compensation based on effectiveness, as well as working in a low-performing school or teaching in a hard-to-staff subject area.


Establish Mutual Consent for Teacher Placements

Placement of teachers should no longer be forced upon the school or the teacher.

Both principals and teachers deserve to have a voice in placement decisions. Without mutual consent, teacher placement can actually work against ensuring students have the best teachers every classroom. Some teachers end up in schools that are not the right fit, while some principals end up practicing the 'dance of the lemons', whereby an ineffective teacher is simply passed from school to school.

Real reform would end the practice of forced placement. Both S2881 and TEACHNJ require the mutual consent of both the teacher and the principal in instructional staff assignments.


Empower parents with Real Choices

Parents should have quality information and multiple options so they can choose the best school for their child.

All parents, regardless of income, should have multiple high-quality schools from which to choose, including access to high performing public charter schools. Mandating that a child go to one specific school because of their zip code, regardless of how poorly that school is performing, is not in the best interest of kids.

In order to support the growth of as many high-performing public charter schools as possible, New Jersey should have more than one dedicated authorizer that is responsible for vetting potential charter school applicants, authorizing new charters, and then holding those schools accountable. And charter schools must be able to open without being stopped by local opposition more interested in protecting turf than in ensuring that quality school options exist for every student.

New Jersey has a growing charter movement, and the legislature is considering several important measures regarding charter schools.

  • A3083 seeks to expand authorization by adding the Center for Effective School Practices within the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University as a charter school authorizer. Enabling higher education institutions to authorize charters has proven effective in expanding quality education options for students in other states.

  • A3356 aims to increase accountability and transparency for charter schools. The bill would require charter schools to maintain an admissions waiting list that is posted publicly; this waiting list would also become part of the school’s annual assessment by the State Commissioner. The bill also increases accountability by establishing new triggers for revocation following the Commissioner’s review, including: failure to achieve core curriculum standards; engaging in discrimination; or violation of any provision of its charter, including lack of fiscal responsibility.

  • A2806 would allow high-performing non-public schools or non-public schools under contract with an approved charter management organization to convert to charter schools upon expedited approval by the State Commissioner.

 

Another measure – A3852 – threatens to stop charter growth by requiring that new charter schools can only open with approval from voters in local school board elections. Such a requirement would make it virtually impossible to open a new school in an area opposed to change, regardless of whether it’s in the best interests of students.