Tag: Student Growth

Surely We Can Do Better Than DeVos When It Comes to Opening Schools

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Sunday morning Education Secretary Betsy DeVos went on CNN and Fox to tout her belief that all American schools must open for full-time in-person learning in September. Afterwards she was excoriated for both her ignorance and her cavalier attitude towards potential outbreaks among students, teachers, and staff.   It’s so easy to beat up on DeVos. (Heck, I do it all the time.)  But right now I’m thinking that DeVos and her boss’s idiocy are a …

As New Jersey Schools Struggle to Go Virtual, Here’s What We Can Learn From New Egypt High School.

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As COVID-19 continues to spread across New Jersey, “long term school closures are inevitable,” said Governor Phil Murphy on Friday. All across the country school districts are scrambling to replace traditional educational models of education—the teacher standing before students imparting knowledge—with, well, something else. New Jersey Commissioner of Education Lamont Repollet said, in reference to this transition, “We are pretty much creating a new educational system.” But at New Egypt High School, which I visited before the …

Murphy Manages To Deliver What Nobody Wants.

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Governor Phil Murphy loves to talk about how he’s moving New Jersey forward but in the world of K-12 education he’s intent on moving us back ten years. Remember the days of the High School Proficiency Assessments (HSPA), those basic skills tests that former Education Commissioner Lucille Davy, who served under Jon Corzine, deemed “8th grade level”? The assessments so easy to pass that our graduation rate was sky-high and first-year college students, deceived by …

A Pro’s Advice to New Teachers: When You’re Honest About Yourself, You Give Students Permission to Be Honest Too.

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This is a guest post by Mark Joseph, a sixth-grade math teacher at KIPP Rise Academy in Newark, where he has taught for ten years.  I like to say that kids have the best bullshit detectors in the world. They can tell when you’re faking and they can tell when it’s real. My usual prescription to teachers against the inevitable bullshit is — be authentic, be you. However, I think that the word authentic has …

New Credo Study on Camden Proves That “You Can Provide More High Quality Choices for Families” and Improve Outcomes for “Students Who Have Been Most Underserved.”

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The Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University (CREDO) has almost completed  its City Studies Project with the aim “to provide the public with periodic reports of academic performance for public K-12 schools in selected cities across the United State.” Eleven urban school districts are included (and the only one not posted yet is Oakland). One of those cities is Camden, New Jersey and yesterday CREDO released its findings, which indicate both good …

Why Is It Important That Journalists and Politicians Point Out NJEA’s Control of Governor Murphy?

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Mike Lilley of the Sunlight Foundation of New Jersey raises an interesting point in a recent blog post: While Tom Moran wrote an excellent editorial lambasting Gov. Phil Murphy for conditionally vetoing a bill that would require non-profits to reveal funders (like New Direction New Jersey that exists solely to push the Governor’s agenda), the Star-Ledger editor “neglects to point out the FACT that in the case at hand – where Murphy appears in the …

Andrew Martin Corrects a Warped Narrative of Newark Public Schools That is “Long on Political Intrigue But Short on Data.”

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This is a guest post by Andrew Martin, who served as the Chief Data Officer for the Newark Public Schools from 2017-18.  Prior to working for NPS he was the Director of Special Projects for KIPP New Jersey, leading research, evaluation, and assessment efforts.  He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and a former classroom teacher for KIPP NJ and the New York City Department of Education.   Last year, test scores for Newark …

An Open Letter to Gov. Phil Murphy: Which Side Are You On?

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Dear Governor Murphy, I heard you just demanded that State Board of Education member Jack Fornaro resign after he inquired whether Hispanic students in Paterson were capable of passing courses in American history. I share your concerns about Fornaro’s low expectations for students of color and applaud your quick response. That’s true progressivism in action within the realm of public education. Bully for you! But I’m confused. While you proudly identify as a progressive — …

School Choice is Improving Prospects for Newark Schoolchildren But It’s Not Doing Much for Weber/Baker’s Analytical Acumen

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In Wednesday’s NJ Spotlight, Mark Weber takes aim at two recent editorials, mine and Michele Mason’s, which cover different aspects of recent public school improvements in Newark, N.J.’s largest school district. Weber also uses the editorial to hype a new report he wrote with Rutgers Professor Bruce Baker (his dissertation advisor), published by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) called “School District Reform in Newark and Impact of the Newark Education Reforms. The NEPC report by Weber/Baker, …

New Jersey Skated by for Years on Misleading Graduation Rates, But Now We’re Closing the “Honesty Gap”

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Does it seem odd to you that we’re celebrating the fact that half of New Jersey’s third-graders are at or above grade level in language arts and math? If you’re puzzled by this exuberance—only half?—then you’re missing a critical piece of our state’s history: For decades we’ve been lying to ourselves, our families, our constituents and our children. While our high school graduation rates are traditionally sky-high and a source of great pride, we have …