Majority of New Jerseyans give their hometowns, schools positive ratings

February 29, 2012

But poll finds upbeat outlook toward entire state down slightly
BY TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NJ state map Two in three New Jerseyans rate the state as either an excellent (15 percent) or good (47 percent) place to live, a figure that is down slightly from an October survey, according to a Monmouth University Poll made public Tuesday.

However, ratings of residents’ own towns stand at 33 percent excellent and 41 percent good. The 33 percent excellent number matches the prior three-decade high for this measure.

Ratings of local schools have ticked up as well, to 26 percent excellent and 42 percent good. The 68 percent positive rating marks an all-time high on this question in polls going back to 1978.

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Newark mayor vows to fight plan to dismantle University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

February 29, 2012

BY PATRICIA ALEX, STAFF WRITER, The Record

Newark Mayor Cory Booker vowed Tuesday to “consider every option” – from lawsuits to legislative action – to “trip up” the plan that dismantles the city-based University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Booker voiced his strongest opposition yet to the proposal unveiled by Governor Christie late last month that would reorder public higher education in the New Jersey.

“We want to see if we can prevent what I think would be the undermining of my city,” Booker, a Democrat, said during a meeting with the editorial board of The Record.

“I will consider every option to defend critical assets for Newark,” he said.

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Senate Hearing to Refocus Attention on Tenure Reform

February 29, 2012

With no vote planned, Sen. Ruiz still has time to work out the details of her high-profile bill
By John Mooney

Credit: Amanda Brown Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex)

The debate over tenure reform in New Jersey is likely to be back on the front burner next week, as a high-profile bill goes before a key Senate committee — with some key questions far from resolved.

The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), would revamp how teachers receive and lose tenure. Titled “Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of NJ” (TEACHNJ), the bill has been scheduled for hearing by the Senate education committee on Monday.

Ruiz, who chairs the committee, said the panel would not be voting on the bill on Monday, but only accepting testimony as to its strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for possible improvements.

She did not set a timeframe for when she hopes the bill does come to a vote.

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From Snobs to ‘Pointy-Headed College Professors’ to ‘Eggheads’

February 29, 2012

By Emma Roller

When Rick Santorum called President Obama “a snob” for wanting more Americans to attend college, it caused quite a stir, leading some fellow Republicans to distance themselves from the remarks.

“There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them,” continued Mr. Santorum at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. “Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”

Fellow conservatives like Gov. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia may have seen Mr. Santorum’s remarks as extreme, but anti-intellectual rhetoric has a long history in presidential campaigns.

Elvin T. Lim, an associate professor of government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-Intellectual Presidency (Oxford University Press, 2008), says Republican candidates often use comments like Mr. Santorum’s to separate themselves from the pack and build trust with their base.

“It’s a last-ditch effort to make sure the base comes out for him,” he says. “It’s not surprising that we see that the most strident forms of anti-intellectualism in these closing days of the primary.”

Here’s a sampling of what candidates past and present have said about those highfalutin innalekshuls.

‘Youps’: Newark’s expensive, excess school staff

February 28, 2012

By Joan Whitlow/For The Star-Ledger

Alexandra Pais / Special to The Star-LedgerSuperintendent of Newark Schools Cami Anderson.

[...]
Joseph Del Grosso, the Newark Teachers Union president, protested that he’s seen the list and that none of the teachers on it has complaints or reviews on file that would trigger tenure charges or disciplinary action.

One of the problems, I’ve been told, is that principals don’t always write up teachers the way they should, because of everything from friendship to a belief that nothing comes of it.

“Don’t blame the union,” Del Grosso told me.

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Will NJ Go Public With Teacher Ratings?

February 28, 2012

Cerf says ‘No,’ but release of teacher evaluations in NYC raises questions

By John Mooney

When New York City last week posted the performance ratings for thousands of its public school teachers online, it raised concerns about the fairness of the data and the accuracy of the ratings themselves.

It also brought up questions on this side of the Hudson River as to whether public grades for teachers would be coming to New Jersey next, as this state develops its own teacher evaluation system.

Yesterday, acting education commissioner Chris Cerf tried to quell worries and said he would be against public disclosure of individual teachers’ scores.

“I don’t believe in that,” Cerf said in an interview last night. “It is counterproductive, and I believe it is not something we should put out. And especially putting that out in isolation, it’s against everything we want to do.”

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GOP Candidates Embrace Anti-Labor, Free-Market Fundamentalism

February 28, 2012

John Nichols

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks at First Redeemer Church while on a campaign tour in Cumming, Georgia, February 26, 2012. REUTERS/Tami Chappell

Much is being made, and appropriately so, about the extremism of the Republican presidential field when it comes to reproductive rights and ripping down Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state.

It is not just Rick Santorum. Three of the four Republican contenders for the presidency—the sometimes exception is Ron Paul—are running campaigns that position them as theocratic extremists of a far more radical bent than religious-right contenders such as Pat Robertson in 1988 or Gary Bauer in 2000.

But there was an ever more arch fundamentalism on display among the Republican contenders as they battled across Arizona and Michigan in anticipation of today’s critical primaries in those states.

Like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Maine Governor Paul LePage, they are anti-labor extremists whose opposition to free trade unions goes to extremes not seen since southern segregationists sought to bar unions because of their fear that white workers and people of color were being organized into labor organizations that would threaten “Jim Crow.”

When the candidates debated last Wednesday night in Arizona—a state where Republican Governor Jan Brewer and her legislative allies are advancing a package of anti-union measures—there was no mercy for working Americans or the unions that represent them.

As usual, that went double for Newt Gingrich.

The former Speaker of the House—and noted advocate for overturning child-labor laws—compared unions that represent public-school teachers with rouge nations that attack the United States.

“It’s increasingly clear [education unions] care about protecting bad teachers. If you look at [Los Angeles] Unified, it is almost criminal what we do to the poorest children of America,” he said. “If a foreign nation did this to our children, we would declare it an act of war because they are doing so much damage.”

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Acting N.J. education chief reconsiders using school free-lunch programs to measure poverty

February 27, 2012

By Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, left, addresses the media during a press conference with Governor Chris Christie in this 2011 file photo. Cerf has called for a governor-appointed task force to study whether there is an alternative to count poor students than the free and reduced lunch program, as well as whether poverty is a disadvantage for students.

TRENTON — Tucked into an 80-page report on Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to overhaul distribution of state aid to public schools is a proposal that could have greater implications on school funding than anything else the governor has pitched, experts say.

In New Jersey and across the nation, the number of students living in poverty is determined by how many of them qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, a federal program run by the Department of Agriculture. But the count is not just about the federally subsidized meals — schools with poor students in the lunch program receive up to 57 percent more state aid than their peers.

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Cerf Will Pay to See Progress on School Reform Agenda

February 27, 2012

New Innovation Fund will reward schools for making goals and hitting targets

By John Mooney

Can financial rewards help bring about change in New Jersey’s public schools? Apparently, the Christie administration thinks so.

In the latest move to use money as an incentive, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration has added to its new school funding plan a multimillion dollar program to reward schools and districts that meet specific goals and implement targeted reforms.

Acting education commissioner Chris Cerf outlined the new “Innovation Fund” in last week’s 83-page report on school funding, which serves as the basis of Christie’s proposed system for distributing state aid to schools next year and beyond.

Under Cerf’s plan, the Innovation Fund would serve two functions.

First, it would provide dollar rewards to schools that make specific achievement gains, such as the largest improvement in fourth-grade reading scores for low-income students or the biggest jump in graduation rates.

Second, it would serve as the central pool of funds for a competitive grant process. Schools would apply for specific projects and programs that meet the Christie administration’s reform agenda for raising achievement, including greater teacher accountability or strategies for helping the very lowest-performing schools.

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Charges against Kean U. president should be swiftly resolved

February 26, 2012

Honesty is a virtue in every occupation, but it is the life blood of education. As a longtime college professor and former dean, I know that there is nothing more poisonous to an academic institution than condoning deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. This is why university honesty codes for teaching, learning, and publication are so strict. At a time when the internet has made plagiarism easier than ever before, firm and credible leadership is needed enforce unequivocal standards for academic integrity. But what is to be done when the president of a university is suspected of flagrant dishonesty?

Recently, scholars and journalists have raised serious questions about Dawood Farahi, president of Kean University. He is alleged to have made false claims about his own academic credentials and publications. (See, for example, “Investigation of Kean president the best way to settle dispute,” Star Ledger, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012.) This issue should not be left to fester. I call on Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham, chair of the New Jersey Senate Committee on Higher Education, to investigate these allegations. If President Farahi is not guilty he deserves to be publicly exonerated, if he is guilty he deserves to be removed from office.

Richard Kamber
Hoboken
from http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/17662245/article-Charges-against-Kean-U–president-should-be-swiftly-resolved