From: Ernesto Cullari

My Mom Lee and her husband Matt sold all of their belongings and relocated their comfortable lives from New Jersey to Cebu, Philippines to start an orphanage that rescues impoverished kids from the dangerous streets. Street Kids Philippine Missions, a 301(c) non-profit corporation, is dedicated to giving those most vulnerable a place to live, learn, and be loved while being raised to be disciples of God’s Word.

On Saturday October 15th from 2pm-6pm, Street Kids PM is holding a fundraiser event at Chico’s House of Jazz in Asbury Park. With special guest performances by recording artists Sophie Dupin, Jay Loftus and others; win a Kindle Fire and other prizes in our raffle. Recommended donation is $50.
—I hope you can make it!

Good morning and on behalf of our association, and our leaders, 1st VP of Professional Staff Sean Hamilton, 2nd VP of ESP, John Kostecki, Treasurer Paul Murphy, Secretary Annette Rios and of course, the person who all admins and central office know, our grievance chair, Sue Hayes Stasio, I want to welcome ALL of you – back to the Asbury Park School District. We’re here today because we ALL have ONE fundamental thing in common, we’re ALL educators, and we’re ALL proud to serve the children of the Asbury Park School District. We work HARD. And the work we do during and after the school day , on nights, weekends, and even during the summer is VITAL to the future of our students, and to the future of society. That’s an ENORMOUS responsibility and one we proudly accept, despite the challenges we are facing. And we’re facing a LOT of them. We have been under ATTACK for almost two years now and the attacks on us are FAR from over. Next, we will face NEW threats. Attacks on our tenure and layoff rights. Attempts to tie teacher evaluations too closely to student test scores – when we ALL know there are MANY factors beyond our control that affect those scores. And attempts to impose merit pay plans that will DIVIDE us, even though COLLABORATION is central to the best work we do.

This is an article from NJ.com, here is a link to the article:

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie will announce legislation today to create public-private partnerships to run some schools in New Jersey, three people with knowledge of the plan said.

The governor is scheduled to make the announcement at noon at the Lanning Square Elementary School in Camden.

Two of the sources said Christie will be appearing with Camden Mayor Dana Redd, a Democrat who has worked with the Republican governor on education issues.

It’s unclear exactly how the public-private partnerships would work, and the sources said it would start as a pilot program. They declined to speak on the record in advance of the public announcement.

One source said individual districts would need to opt into the pilot program and approval from local school boards would be required.

Christie’s acting education commissioner, Christopher Cerf, has experience in public-private school partnerships. He previously led Edison Schools, a for-profit company that became the largest private-sector manager of public schools. Cerf left the company, now called EdisonLearning, in 2005.

Christie is also connected to for-profit education companies, including Cerf’s.

From 1999 to 2001, Christie was a registered lobbyist at a law firm that lobbied New Jersey government on behalf of Edison Schools, according to filings with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission. While the firm was representing the multinational education company, Chris Cerf was its general counsel.

The firm, Dughi, Hewit and Palatucci, also represented Mosaica Education, a for-profit charter school operator, and the University of Phoenix, a for-profit online university.

This is an article from NJ.com, here is a link to the article:

NJ Senate Democrats Consider Budget That Would Increase School Funding By $600M, Reintroduce ‘Millionaire’s Tax’

TRENTON — Senate Democrats are thinking of introducing their own budget that would increase school financing by as much as $1.1 billion, including about $600 million for non-Abbott school districts, according to four people familiar with the plan.

The money would come from a combination of additional revenue, some cuts in spending, and possibly a millionaire’s tax, said the sources, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the plan.

The proposal is emerging less than three weeks after the state Supreme Court ordered the state to increase financing for poor school districts, known as Abbott districts, by $500 million, and with three weeks to go until the legislature is required to approve a budget for the next fiscal year.

The plan was unveiled by State Senate President Stephen Sweeney at a recent Senate Democratic caucus, the sources said. Derek Roseman, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said he would not comment on internal deliberations, nor would he confirm or deny the proposal.

The state Supreme Court stopped short of ordering the restoration of the full $1.7 billion in cuts that Gov. Chris Christie relied on to balance this year’s budget. The governor said he would comply with the order after giving some mixed signals, but left it to the Democrat-controlled legislature to work out the details — as long as there is no tax increase.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

TRENTON — An opinion by a divided state Supreme Court on Tuesday sets up a state budget confrontation between a Republican governor who vows not to raise taxes and a Democratic-controlled state Legislature seeking to funnel even more money to local schools.

The state Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, ordered New Jersey to provide full funding for 31 school districts that have long received massive state aid under previous court orders.

The ruling presents the state with a much smaller bill — estimated to be $500 million — than it would have if the court had ordered New Jersey to provide full state aid, some $1.75 billion more, to all school districts.

But the decision also marks a rebuke for Gov. Chris Christie, who has criticized the court over the school funding issue since he was a gubernatorial candidate.

Christie, who had broached the idea of defying the court in a radio appearance, said in a press conference that he would comply with the order. Christie said the Legislature should now determine the state budget that takes effect July 1, but he said he did not want to see new taxes.

Christie also castigated the decision.

“As a fundamental principle, I do not believe it is the role of the state Supreme Court to determine what programs the state should and should not be funding, and to what amount,” he said in a news conference. “The Supreme Court is not the Legislature.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

INSIDE: Jerseyans split on continuing growth of charter schools, poll finds.

Gov. Chris Christie, spelling out his teacher tenure reform plans in the most detail yet in front of an audience of national experts, wants each school district to have significant discretion in constructing its own teacher and principal evaluation systems.

Appearing at an event hosted in New York Thursday by the prominent Washington-based think tank, the Brookings Institution, Christie said growth in test scores, grades and other metrics should serve to make up half of each teacher’s annual evaluation. Districts should also design their own subjective evaluation based on administrators’ in-class observations and other criteria.

Christie again attacked the state’s powerful teachers union through much of his speech, but also praised teachers and said they needed to be part of reform. Christie said he had learned much from meeting with small groups of teachers privately in recent weeks.

“If you empower teachers to be a large part of the decision-making process, it will work,” Christie said in response to a question. “I think that will lower the fear level.”

He stressed that he would not allow the unions to influence the creation of local evaluation criteria. He also said teachers and administrators know their local students best and should have influence on how staff is measured for raises and tenure.

“What needs to be done in Short Hills is significantly different than what needs to be done in Paterson,” Christie said.

This is an article from the ABC News Website, here is a link to the article:

Christie Tells Diane Sawyer He Won’t Run for President in 2012, But Will His Friend Donald Trump?

By BRADLEY BLACKBURN
April 6, 2011

In an interview with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, Christie offered no apology for his often tough talk that has left some teachers feeling bruised. He also talked about the presidential possibilities of both himself and his “friend” Donald Trump, and criticism by Jersey rock icon Bruce Springsteen.

While sitting in the school library at Lincoln School in Kearney, N.J., Christie told Sawyer that it’s essential for his state’s education system to change and he blames the teachers union for the harsh cuts his administration is making, that includes layoffs and larger classrooms.

“I believe the teachers in New Jersey in the main are wonderful public servants that care deeply. But their union, their union are a group of political thugs,” Christie said.

He said the New Jersey Education Association refused to negotiate on a salary freeze last year. “They should have taken the salary freeze. They didn’t and now, you know, we had to lay teachers off.”

“They chose to continue to get their salary increases rather than be part of the shared sacrifice,” he said.

Dismissing objections to his blunt talk, Christie said, “We’re from New Jersey and when you’re from New Jersey, what that means is you give as good as you get.”

Christie is also suggesting a dramatic change in the state’s tenure program, forcing tenured teachers to undergo a yearly review and face removal from tenure if they’re found to be ineffective.

This is an article from the New York Times Website, here is a link to the article:

Pay Teachers More
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid.

That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.

Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children.

These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers — and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”

Changes in relative pay have reinforced the problem. In 1970, in New York City, a newly minted teacher at a public school earned about $2,000 less in salary than a starting lawyer at a prominent law firm. These days the lawyer takes home, including bonus, $115,000 more than the teacher, the McKinsey study found.

We all understand intuitively the difference a great teacher makes. I think of Juanita Trantina, who left my fifth-grade class intoxicated with excitement for learning and fascinated by the current events she spoke about.

This is an article from the CityPages Website in Minneapolis, MN, here is a link to the article:

Behind the scenes of standardized testing
By Jessica Lussenhop
published: February 23, 2011

Dan DiMaggio was blown away the first time he heard his boss say it.

The pensive, bespectacled 25-year-old had been coming to his new job in the Comcast building in downtown St. Paul for only about a week. Naturally, he had lots of questions.

At one point, DiMaggio approached his increasingly red-faced supervisor at his desk with another question. Instead of answering, the man just hissed at him.

“You know this stuff better than I do!” he said. “Stop asking me questions!”

DiMaggio was struck dumb.

“I definitely didn’t feel like I knew what was going on at all,” he remembers. “Your supervisor has to at least pretend to know what’s going on or everything falls apart.”

DiMaggio’s question concerned an essay titled, “What’s your goal in life?” The answer for a surprising number of seventh-graders was to lift 200 pounds.

Although DiMaggio had been through a training process, he found himself tripped up as he began scoring the essays. What made the organization “good” as opposed to “excellent”? What happens when the kid doesn’t answer the question at all, but writes with excellent organization about whatever the hell he wants? Did it matter that it was insane for seventh-graders to think they’d be benching 200 pounds?

DiMaggio had good reason to worry. His score could determine whether the school was deemed adequate or failing—whether it received government funding or got shut down.

DiMaggio soon learned that his boss was a temp like him.

This is the most powerful show of support on the Congressional House floor I have ever seen.  Congressman Ryan hits the nail on the head. If the video doesn’t appear in a player on this page please follow this YouTube link. 

In a recent interview Ryan spoke out against the bill saying it is just an effort by Republicans to divide the work force:
“This isn’t the old New England moderate Republican we’re seeing now.  This Tea Party radicals, quite frankly, and ideologues who are trying to jam this agenda down the throat of a very moderate state in Ohio.  I think there is  going to be some backlash. They may have the ability to get it passed, but they will feel the blowback from it.”