Schools

Christie Backs President Obama's NCLB Ruling for NJ

Governor, Union County school officials support termination of mandatory No Child Left Behind school requirements.

Gov. Chris Christie gave his stamp of approval Thursday after President Obama announced that New Jersey is among 10 states receiving a federal waiver that releases it from the guiding rules and regulations of the No Child Left Behind Act and allow greater freedom for districts to develop systems of student accountability.

The waiver comes with an approval of the state's yearly required NCLB application, in which state officials advocated for the existing standardized testing benchmarks be abolished. A new form of measuring student progress will begin in September of this year.

NCLB was signed into law in 2001 by then-president George W. Bush. The program featured a 2014 deadline for making all students proficient in math and reading. 

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In Union County, administrators and school board members said the sustained success of their schools — and most in the Garden State — made NCLB irrelevent.

"New Jersey has proven itself as an education state," Cranford Superintendent of School's Gayle Carrick said. "We continue to seek excellence with or without NCLB."

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TDr. Nathan Parker, Super of Summit, in response to NCLB news and whether or not it will impact Summit."It won't affect us," said Dr. Nathan Parker, Superintendent of Schools in Summit. "We far exceed any expectation that the federal government ever had. My hope is that the changes in the status of NCLB will be turned into a positive."

Dr. Margaret Hayes, Superintendent of Scotch Plains-Fanwood schools, was thrilled by the decision and lauded the freedom from using standardized tests as benchmarks for educational success.

"No Child Left Behind was designed to hold schools accountable in ensuring that all students receive a quality education regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, Hayes said. "This premise contains the moral imperative and is indisputable. However, the metrics put in place relied solely on one standardized testing measure. Focusing on a specific benchmark did not recognize student growth.  

"Given the New Jersey waiver, Scotch Plains-Fanwood Public Schools will continue to focus on providing instruction for all students to experience maximum achievement each academic year," Hayes said. "We look forward to the increased flexibility in assessing our students’ progress while remaining focused on accountability and the implementation of the Common Core Content Standards. Schools should be evaluated on multiple measures, including but not limited to, standardized testing scores."

As part of New Jersey's successful waiver application, the Christie Administration outlined plans for three principles that are in line with the goals of the Obama Administration, according to the governor's office:

  • College and career-ready expectations for all students;
  • State-developed differentiated recognition, accountability and support;
  • Providing support for effective instruction and leadership.

"The Obama Administration's approval of our education-reform agenda contained in this application confirms that our bold, common-sense, and bipartisan reforms are right for New Jersey and shared by the President and Secretary Duncan's educational vision for the country," Christie said, in a prepared statement.

"This is not about Democrats or Republicans — it is about pursuing an agenda in the best interest of our children, whose educational needs are not being met, and those who are getting a decent education but deserve a great one." 

Through NCLB, student groups were measured on their separate performances, and schools were classified as making "Adequate Yearly Progress" or being classified as "In Need of Improvement."

Regardless of socioeconomic background, race, or individual ability, all students were expected to meet the benchmarks set by the tests. If one group of students did not score high enough, an entire school could be classified as "In Need of Improvement." Schools that repeatedly failed to reach "AYP" status could have earned the districts more tutoring and support services — or penalties, such as reduced funding, the elimination of teachers and administrative staff, or even school closures for habitually failing districts.

Schools in New Jersey will no longer have to meet NCLB benchmarks, but instead will be subject to a "fairer and more nuanced accountability system...that measures schools based on both growth and absolute attainment," a release from the Governor's office said.

This new system will separate schools into three tiers: "Priority Schools," which will be chosen from the lowest performing five percent of Title I schools statewide; "Focus Schools," which will be chosen from at least 10 percent of Title I schools; and "Reward Schools," or those schools that demonstrate high student performance, or are making progress in closing achievement gaps between student groups, according to the release.

These schools will be identified during the summer, with interventions to begin during the 2012-13 school year.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the largest education union in the U.S., said the Obama administration was reacting to calls from parents and educators to fix what is often considered an impefect system, but she was cautiously skeptical.

"If state officials do not work with teachers and administrators to design their own new system, which should center around student learning and not test scores, NCLB could be replaced by a system that is either no different, or could be worse than the current system," she said.

"We remain concerned that some states may use these waivers to simply put metrics on top of poorly constructed and implemented evaluation systems," she said.

Mitch Slater, a member of the Westfield Board of Education, said the board will take a "wait-and-see approach."

 "It's one of those things where the devil is in the details," he said. "And we just don't know what the details are at this point."

Liz Alterman, Toniann Antonelli, Emily Everson and Camilo Smith contributed to this article.

 

 

 

 

 


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