Dear Editor:
Now is an historic time in New Jersey education. Parents—including parents of students with disabilities—should be aware of the opportunity to fundamentally transform New Jersey’s public school education system to the benefit of all students, including those with disabilities.
There are two major policy initiatives that champion better learning outcomes for all New Jersey students. Together, they can help shape the future of our state’s public school system and help ensure that there is an effective teacher in every classroom.
- “Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey,” or TEACHNJ, is a piece of legislation introduced by Senator Teresa Ruiz of Essex County. As the name suggests, the primary focus of the bill is to tie a teacher’s performance to how well kids are learning in the classroom. The bill proposes a new evaluation system that uses multiple measures to rate teachers along parameters of both student learning outcomes and the use of effective practices. Personnel decisions, such as tenure, would be based on those ratings. In short, the bill proposes bringing heightened accountability for student outcomes in a way that does not currently exist in New Jersey.
- “Excellent Education for New Jersey,” or EE4NJ, is a new teacher evaluation pilot program in ten school districts across the state, as well as in 19 schools with federal School Improvement Grants, and in Newark. Next year, the program will be expanded to an additional 20+ districts. Districts not in the pilot will be preparing for full statewide rollout in all schools in time for the 2013-2014 academic year.
The ten current pilot school districts are: Alexandria Township (Hunterdon), Bergenfield (Bergen), Elizabeth (Union), Monroe Township (Middlesex), Ocean City (Cape May), Pemberton Township (Burlington), Red Bank Borough (Monmouth), Secaucus (Hudson), West Deptford (Gloucester), and Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional (Salem).
Each of these districts must convene a District Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (DEPAC) made up of teachers, administrators, school board members, parents, and other stakeholders, who will develop, oversee, and guide the implementation of the pilot program. The DEPACs provide feedback to the state-level Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (EPAC) that advises the NJDOE, the state’s education department.
EE4NJ, like the proposed TEACHNJ legislation, helps ensure that high school graduation and college readiness are as important for students with disabilities as they are for all other groups of students. To this end, the pilot districts are determining how student achievement will be measured in non-tested subjects, like Art and Social Studies, as well as non-tested grades. EE4NJ offers a significant role for districts to shape a special education teacher evaluation protocol.
Under both initiatives, there is a great deal left to be decided in non-standardized-tested grades and subjects. Both the districts and the NJDOE have been given wide latitude to develop evaluation measures for general education teachers who serve students with disabilities, as well as special education teachers.
According to Lynn Holheide, an expert on special education teacher evaluations at Vanderbilt University’s National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, special education must be included at the earliest stages of the overall evaluation development process. Because special education has unique issues, and efforts to create fair and valid evaluations are nascent, a great deal of thought and planning must go into developing rubrics. There are resources available but they must be studied, informed input must be sought, and decisions must be made. In addition, because whatever system is initially introduced will not be a perfect product, a provision must be made for data collection for analysis, systematic feedback, and revision and refinement as part of an on-going process.
Developing and implementing a new statewide evaluation system for all New Jersey teachers is a massive undertaking and represents a significant change to the existing status quo. Consequently, there is a lot of consternation and fear of the unknown at every level of the state’s public school system. In such an environment, there is a natural tendency to avoid more difficult tasks because even simple tasks seem hard to complete. Thus, the work of developing a special education evaluation rubric could easily be put off until later in the overall implementation process. This has indeed occurred in other states. This is what the special education community should try to avoid by helping inform the process from the start.
That is where you and other special education advocates come in.
If you are in one of the pilot districts, learn about what your district is doing to create a special education teacher evaluation. Ask if there are special education teachers or parents of students with disabilities on the DEPAC.
If you are not in a pilot district, your district will begin to develop the components of your system this fall. Ask what your district plans to do regarding special education teacher evaluations, and seek to play a constructive role by getting involved and bringing a disability perspective into the process.
Finally, learn more about TEACHNJ, and get involved so that the issues and concerns of special education are well expressed and considered.
Most parents of a child with disabilities know the persistent and sometimes agonizing struggle to raise academic expectations for their child. The policy initiatives now before us create an opportunity for the special education community to help inform the evaluation system of the future: one that focuses on accountability for academic progress for all students, so that high school graduation and college readiness is as important for students with disabilities as it is for all other groups of students.
– Michael Lilley,
Michael Lilley is the Executive Director of Better Education for New Jersey Kids, PAC. Better Education for New Jersey Kids is a not-for-profit organization concerned with school reform.
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