By John Mooney
Paul Palek spends his days — and evenings — fielding questions from concerned teachers and trying to quell anxieties
State education official Paul Palek taking individual teacher’s questions on new evaluation system.
The hands shot up as soon as Paul Palek asked for questions. How would this affect them? What about their individual classes? When would they know how they rate?
It’s all in a day’s work for Palek, who travels the northern part of the state as the Department of Education’s representative, talking with teachers about the new evaluation system.
Last night, he was in West Orange where about 50 teachers listened intently in the auditorium of the Liberty Middle School. Earlier in the day, he had visited two other districts. Today, it will be another three.
“I’m on the road all the time,” he said.
Last night’s meeting drew teachers from Newark to Boonton, eager to dig into the details of AchieveNJ, the statewide system that will evaluate them using a host of new factors — including classroom observations and a mix of student performance measures — and rate them from “ineffective” to “highly effective.”
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