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ACTION ALERT TO ALL NJPSA MEMBERS...TENURE LEGISLATION SET FOR THURSDAY VOTE!

By: Jennifer Keyes-Maloney6/19/2012 2:38:00 PM

Yesterday, NJPSA Executive Director Patricia Wright, Government Relations Director Debra Bradley and Assistant Government Relations Director Jennifer Keyes Maloney testified before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on SCS-1455 (Ruiz ) the “Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act (TEACH NJ) legislation.  If signed into law, TEACH NJ will significantly revise New Jersey’s system of educator evaluation and tenure rights. 

Last week, on June 14, NJPSA supported  parallel tenure legislation filed in the Assembly A-3060 (Diegnan) which differs in key areas as discussed below. 

This Thursday, June 21st, the Senate bill, SCS-1455 is posted for a vote in the full Senate.  In our view, amendments are still needed to TEACH NJ.  WE NEED YOUR HELP TO AMEND THIS BILL!

SCS-1455 contains many provisions that NJPSA is able to support including provisions that will strengthen professional practice including

  • a strong focus on early support for novice teachers and leaders through mentoring requirements;
  • a clear recognition of the importance of  professional development;
  • a statutory framework defining the parameters of a quality evaluation system for teachers and leaders;
  • an extension of time to four years  for new teachers and leaders to attain tenure which will provide school leaders with more flexibility to work with promising teacher candidates; and
  • and the requirement in the legislation for the NJ Department of Education to provide funds necessary to effectuate the provisions  of the Act.

However, NJPSA raised significant concerns with other provisions of SCS 1455 which we believe must be amended before the bill is signed into law.

 Our concerns :

  • The need to add additional quality standards to the evaluation process; 
  • Certified supervisors should  perform educator evaluations;
  • Context standards should be incorporated in evaluation to address the duties and circumstances impacting job performance; and
  • Honor the goals of effectiveness evaluation by empowering school leaders to respond to each individual teacher’s development needs based upon their performance ratings. 
  • The need to preserve the due process rights of members in the new arbitration process governing tenure hearings;
  • The need to empower principals in hiring and key personnel decisions; and
  • The need to enact reasonable timelines focused on the phase-in of the educator evaluation process. 

Please read NJPSA’ s Side by Side Analysis of the two bills and call your legislators TODAY!

The Legislation- Issues and Talking Points

The two bills have many similarities but key differences exist.  NJPSA is urging the Legislature to consider these keys issues as the two bills are reconciled and move through the legislative process to final passage.

Maintain quality standards – Require the use of Certified Supervisors in Evaluation!

  • While both bills require districts use professional standards in evaluating educators, A-3060 affirmatively names what those standards are and requires they be incorporated in evaluation.    Moreover, A-3060 allows only certified in-district supervisors conduct evaluations.  This requirement ensures that outside individuals with no knowledge of a district or teaching staff members are not permitted to conduct evaluation.   In comparison, S-1455 would allow the majority representative of the teacher’s group to decide whether to permit a teacher sitting on the School Improvement Panel developed under the bill, to be involved in evaluation – significantly blurring the line between manager and employee.  Any enacted legislation should recognize the roles of teaching staff members in district.

Empower the principal

  • NJPSA believes that for any transformative change to take hold in our schools we must emphasize the role of the principal. SCS-1455 does not confer authority on the principal in hiring or assigning their instructional staff despite the principal’s direct accountability for all performance outcomes under the proposed state evaluation rubric.  Further, the legislation appears to significantly curtail the role of the principal in tenure dismissal determinations.  Moreover, the provision may fly in the face of current accepted practice that seeks to include the principal in hiring and dismissal processes.  The new principal evaluation system will give 10% of its weight in a principal’s practice on his role as “human resources manager.”  If a principal has no say on how or who stays and goes – how can they be evaluated as to their ability to hire, retain and exit staff?  The legislation must empower the principal to act.

Ensure due process rights

  • While supportive of efforts to streamline the removal process, including a transition to arbitration, NJPSA cannot support efforts where streamlining the adjudicatory process significantly and irrevocably limits the due process rights of the individuals we represent.  Senate bill S-1455 would inappropriately limit the due process rights of individuals facing tenure dismissal to challenge issues with the evaluation system.  These arbitrary limitations include:
  • an inability to depose witnesses;
  • stringent limitations on written questions to parties;
  • tight cost caps; as well as
  • an extraordinarily limited scope as to what can be challenged.

The bill also seeks to compress timeframes in dismissal cases without establishing some safety valves that allow an arbitrator to make an informed decision that additional time or evidence be included.    Such an artificial and restricted approach is anathema to New Jersey’s strong history of fairness in employment cases and our high standard of quality judicial review.

Treat differentiated levels of evaluation appropriately

  • Finally, NJPSA believes that our evaluation system should be responsive to the level of performance of each individual educator through its ratings system and corollary management response to these ratings.  Senate bill S-1455 would treat partially effective staff members the same as ineffective staff members in certain circumstances.  Individuals receiving a partially effective rating should be required to implement a corrective action plans to address the areas where their performance is deficient. This plan should be developed by the principal in consultation with the employee.  
  • Similarly, the bill ignores improvement in performance by mandating that tenure charges be filed against a teacher that was rated ineffective one year and actually improved their performance level a whole rating category to partially effective the following year.  Since the whole evaluation and performance system is based on the concept of growth, it makes no sense to act to dismiss an employee who makes significant improvement in one year. 
  • NJPSA does not believe that partially effective rated individuals should not be treated the same as ineffective employees.  If we are investing the time to differentiate performance through the evaluation system, then we should similarly differentiate management response to differing levels of performance.  It is counterproductive to educator effectiveness to use a formulaic approach via statute to bypass the professional judgment and options available to supervisors.

Resources

ACTION NEEDED:

NJPSA is urging our members to contact their Legislators on this important issue.  Login to NJPSA’s Legislative Action Center; enter your zip code to access contact information.  

Call and email  your local Legislators  today!    

 

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