By John Mooney
While skeptics worry Christie appointees will rubber-stamp state policy, two named to panel express optimism that dissident voices will be heard
When Gov. Chris Christie finally appointed his long-promised commission to study New Jersey’s school-testing system, the appointees included two teachers who are hardly big fans of where the state is heading.
While they’re not hard-core dissidents, Freehold Township teacher Tracie Yostpille and Camden County Vocational District’s Matt Stagliano certainly come from the camp that believes New Jersey may be moving too far, too fast.
Stagliano, an English teacher, questions how the testing fits students who don’t fit the typical mold. Yostpille, a social studies teacher, worries that testing-related narrowing of the curriculum will squeeze out subjects like hers.
“We’re not language arts or math,” Yostpille said in an interview yesterday. “We are not a tested subject, and are we a subject that matters anymore?”
The question now is how much their concerns – and the voices of others who have been critical of the state’s testing system — will influence the nine-member Commission on the Use of Student Assessments in New Jersey, which Christie took more than three months to appoint and has little time to get started on its work.
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