By John Mooney
Initial report correlates data collected from 25 districts participating in pilot for at least a year
As New Jersey public schools this year move to new teacher evaluation systems, two dozen districts that tested the systems over the past two years are starting to provide information about lessons learned and challenges ahead.
The Christie administration this week released the first of two reports from the 25 pilot districts that were charged — and funded — to test the new systems that use uniform evaluation practices, as well as student performance measures, to gauge the effectiveness of teachers.
The systems are a central piece of New Jersey’s new tenure reform law, known as TEACHNJ, and its requirements for strengthening the process for how teachers and principals are judged, retained, and, in some cases, let go.
The sample size of the pilots — ranging from tiny Alexandria to the 2,000 teachers in Elizabeth — was small for a state with 100,000 teachers, especially when student test scores were used. Nonetheless, it provided the first hard data that has been released on the early impact of the new evaluation requirement that has roiled schools across the state.
For instance, the report of the Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (EPAC) broke down how ratings were distributed across the pilots using the new practices, and found that the pilot districts continued to generally give their teachers strong scores on classroom practice.
In one breakdown of the 10 districts in the pilot for two years, the report said that 73 percent of teachers received at least an “effective” rating on a four-point scale. For another 15 districts in the pilot for one year, 86 percent were at least “effective.”
The four ratings required for every educator are “ineffective,” “partially effective,” “effective,” and “highly effective.” Teachers need to maintain the two highest levels to retain their tenure under the new law.
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