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.”

The Asbury Park Education Association Philanthropic Fund, in conjunction with Chico’s House of Jazz and the Asbury Park Education Association will be holding a fundraiser on Saturday, March 19, 2011 at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, N.J. The Fund will be donating a large portion of the proceeds from the evening’s event to one of Asbury Park’s bravest, Jason Fazio, who was severely burned while battling a fire in January.  Jason has risked his life for over 17 years, and it is only fitting that the APEA Philanthropic Fund and Chico’s House of Jazz give back to one of our own.

Read more on the APEA Philanthropic Fundraiser for Firefighter Jason Fazio page.

State Advanced Placement Pass Rates Released. The Washington Post (2/10, Bowie) reports, “Maryland ranked No. 1 in the nation for the third year in a row in high school graduates who passed [Advanced] Placement exams, the result of a decade-long push to encourage students to prepare for the rigorous college-level exams. Montgomery County Public Schools set a record for AP performance, with half of its 2010 graduates earning a passing grade of 3 or higher on at least one AP exam, the school system said in a news release.” The Post adds, “Across the state, 26.4 percent of 2010 graduates received a 3 or better on at least one AP exam during their high school careers, higher than New York, with 24.6 percent, or Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts, all with a 23 percent pass rate.”

The San Francisco Chronicle (2/10, Tucker) reports, “California schools placed among the best in the country when it comes to students passing Advanced Placement tests, one of the few education rankings in which the state doesn’t sit at the bottom of the barrel with Mississippi, according to a national report released Wednesday. Almost a quarter of the state’s high school Class of 2010 passed at least one Advanced Placement test before graduation, according to the nonprofit College Board, which oversees the Advanced Placement Program. Only five states topped California’s pass rate of 22.3 percent: Maryland, New York, Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts.” Carla Rivera also covered this story in a blog for the Los Angeles Times (2/9).

Boston School Budget Proposal Would Cut 250 Positions. The Boston Globe (2/3, Johnson) reports, “Boston public schools would close a $63 million shortfall by cutting about 250 positions and restructuring class-size averages, and will also use an infusion of city and federal funds, according to a proposed budget presented to the School Committee last night. … The district’s proposed $829 million budget for the next school year also calls for a new way of distributing funds, giving the most money to schools that teach the students who traditionally are the most expensive to educate.” John McDonough, the school system’s chief financial officer, “said the school restructuring should reduce by about one-quarter the 5,600 empty classroom seats scattered across the city. This will allow the district to adjust class-size averages, which, he said, will save an additional $11 million.”

Advertisement

How can you create more opportunities for curiosity, creativity, and exploration with primary students? A Place for Wonder gives you a variety of centers and projects that can be woven into your existing nonfiction literacy curriculum. Click here for details!

In the Classroom
Los Angeles Archdiocese May Be Backing Off Plans To Extend School Year. The Los Angeles Times (2/2, Rivera) reported, “Los Angeles Archdiocese officials appear to have backed off of a controversial plan to extend the school year at all of its elementary schools by 20 days, saying that decision is being left up to individual campuses.” According to the Times, “Cardinal Roger Mahony and other officials announced last week that the extension of the school calendar would be adopted by most of the archdiocese’s 210 elementary schools.