Saturday, May 18, 2013
Buono endorsement and new super PAC could indicate teachers union is ready to fight.
For all the attention the teachers union and its leadership receive, the election of the NJEA's top officers is uneventful to the point of predictability. There's rarely even a challenger these days. The vice president gets elected president; the secretary treasurer is elected vice president. The one relatively new face is that of the secretary treasurer, who's starting out on the first rung of the leadership ladder. Yet for all their predictability, this year's leadership transition comes at a time where the New Jersey Education Association faces some of its biggest challenges, with the union under current president Barbara Keshishian often at loggerheads -- if not open combat -- with Gov. Chris Christie and his administration. Keshishian…
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Union says student performance weighs too heavily in first-year evaluations.
Filling the small conference room where the State Board of Education meets in Trenton last week, about 40 members of the New Jersey Education Association tried to make their union’s presence felt in the push and pull over the state’s new teacher evaluation system. The board was in session to take up the administrative regulations that detail how New Jersey's 500-plus school districts will implement the evaluations required by TEACHNJ, the landmark teacher tenure law approved last summer. It was largely a procedural step -- known as the “second discussion” -- before the board formalizes the proposed regulations next month. It was also the first of two required public hearings on the plans. And it was where the NJEA intended to show that it …
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Just by showing up for interview, governor demonstrates how his relationship with union has evolved.
The fact that Gov. Chris Christie didn’t win the New Jersey Education Association’s endorsement for governor this weekend wasn’t all that unexpected. The surprise was that he participated in the process at all. Four years after Christie sent a public letter rather than showing up for his pitch to the NJEA, the governor walked across West State St. in Trenton -- right on time for his 6:30 appointment. In what was described as a cordial back and forth, Christie spent 45 minutes in front of the 15 union leaders who make up the screening committee, responding to probing questions about everything from pensions to teacher evaluation. Ultimately, the union’s PAC picked the Democratic challenger, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), by a …
Thursday, March 7, 2013
NJEA says law goes beyond what it agreed to, puts too much stress on student test scores.
Even before the new code is introduced, the state’s largest teachers union is pushing back against proposed regulations for implementing the state’s new teacher-tenure law and rekindling some of the old debates that led up to the new law. The New Jersey Education Association reacted quickly to Monday’s online publication of the proposed regulations to be presented to the state Board of Education Wednesday, contending the code goes further than the law they agreed to last summer, including in its use of standardized test scores in evaluating teachers. “A lot of our worst fears are being realized,” Steve Wollmer, the NJEA’s communications director, said last night. The law sets new standards for evaluation of teachers, using both observation…
Friday, January 25, 2013
The creator of a controversial documentary on NJ schools is holding a conference in East Windsor this weekend, open to anyone with questions about the school choice movement.
School choice is an issue that's coming into its own in New Jersey, and Hoboken resident and filmmaker Bob Bowdon has had something to do with that. "The Cartel", Bowdon's award-winning 2009 documentary on what he sees as the low quality and runaway spending of the state's schools, has had a large part in changing the conversation on how schools should operate. That question is going to be the centerpiece in one of the first-ever conferences on school choice in New Jersey. That conference, the New Jersey School Choice Summit, takes place this Sunday, January 27, from 3 pm to 6 pm at the Central New Jersey Conference Center at the Holiday Inn in East Windsor. "It's going to be kind of cool," Bowdon said. "Ordinary people can ask questions …
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Thursday, November 1, 2012
After Sandy batters Atlantic City, the state teachers' union cancels its annual gathering there.
New Jersey’s teachers won’t gather in Atlantic City for their annual convention for the first time in 158 years. The damage and ongoing problems left behind by monster storm Sandy forced the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) to cancel its Nov. 8-9 conference at the shore town. NJEA said its convention is the largest gathering of its kind worldwide, and the sheer size helped make the final decision to cancel. “The NJEA Convention is a massive event, involving tens of thousands of people,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said. “We concluded it was simply not advisable to try to have that many people on the roads and using public transportation while so many communities are struggling to restore power and basic services to their …
Friday, March 16, 2012
NJEA spends $11 million in battle with Christie to top list.
It’s a whopping sum, more than $11 million spent by the New Jersey Education Association last year in its lobbying and communications efforts -- mostly public battles with Gov. Chris Christie. The vast majority of the money was spent on television and other advertising. It dwarfed the next highest sum broken down by New Jersey Election Enforcement Commission yesterday. That was the $1.2 million spent by Verizon NJ. NJEA’s spending was a record amount, almost a sixth of all the money that went to lobbying last year. And it was one that both Christie and the union itself seized upon -- albeit with different intentions. “I feel badly for teachers who are paying dues every year to have that garbage put on the airwaves,” Christie said yesterday…
Debbie Cabrera
10:57 am on Monday, April 8, 2013
I agree with the very first comment - teachers are responsible for teaching. And there are MANY excellent teachers in our district. Unfortunately there are teachers who cannot accomplish this task. My children (both excellent students, and one is now a successfully employed college grad) had a number of instances over the years where they had teachers who either couldn't connect with their … more ›