At 239 pages, the report has room to address everything from paper to professional development
By John Mooney
The Christie administration finally released its report yesterday on ways to ease red tape and regulations that put New Jersey’s public school districts in a bind — from what kinds of paper districts must use to teacher professional development and licensing.
Covering more than 450 recommendations in all, much of the 239-page Education Transformation Task Force report ordered by Gov. Chris Christie more than a year ago addressed mundane issues such as paperwork and procedures.
Red tape reviews are common to nearly every administration. But this project went a step further in several regards, down to proposing language for new administrative code in several major areas and a schedule for seeing them passed.
“We have proposed code, ready to go — that’s how we can have this aggressive timeline,” said David Hespe, a former education commissioner who headed the task force and served as state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf’s chief of staff before stepping down this month.
One big policy shift, for example, would eliminate the state’s decade-old 100-hour requirement for professional development, replacing it with more flexible rules that allow districts to develop their own plans.
The report also had its share of politically contentious recommendations that don’t speak much to red tape but advance Christie’s education agenda, including passage of the recently stalled school voucher proposal known as the Opportunity Scholarship Act.
It also proposed ending seniority rights for teachers, a favorite idea of Christie’s that didn’t survive the state’s recently enacted tenure reform law. In a separate press conference yesterday, Christie said that remained one of his top legislative priorities. “I’m not done with that issue yet,” he said.