Fair Lawn Board of Education focuses on unfunded mandates
Fair Lawn - The Fair Lawn Board of Education approved two resolutions focused on unfunded mandates by the state.
One resolution asks the state for full compensation for New Jersey mandates related to increased observations of teachers, Stronge training and related supplies.
The resolution states that according to Business Administrator Joanne Wilson, the district is spending more than $36,000 in training and implementation of the evaluations. There will be continuing annual cost of approximately $26,000 for supervisory and consulting services to maintain the mandate.
The resolution asks the New Jersey Commissioner of Education David Hespe to reimburse Fair Lawn and all school districts for theses new mandates and fully fund them in the future. Local legislators are also being asked to respond to the resolution and introduce legislation that requires the state to fund the mandates.
Under the state's new evaluation system, teacher evaluations are based on classroom observations along with student performance, including standardized test scores. Districts have to select an evaluation system from a list of providers approved by the NJDOE. Fair Lawn is using the Stronge Teacher Evaluation System.
"It is absolutely necessary that the state begin to listen to the schools," said board member Jeffrey Klein.
The second resolution asks for a delay in the use of New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) test results to evaluate teachers.
The state is in the process of switching from the NJASK test to PARCC, which is an online test that is aligned with the Common Core State Standards by 2015.
The resolution notes using data from NJASK and PARCC testing to measure student growth inappropriately combines different tests and misuses the student testing data to define academic growth. It states that teachers in tested grades would be unfairly evaluated using the data from two different assessments.
The Fair Lawn Board of Education is asking the state to delay evaluating teachers and principals until there are two years of PARCC data to measure student growth and instead use the student growth objectives that are developed by teachers.
"This delay allows for any unanticipated problems with implementation of the PARCC tests to be worked and corrections to PARCC test administration modified if needed," states the resolution.
The resolution points out that even the two NJ Assembly members who sponsored the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act (TEACHNJ Act), the tenure reform law that created the new evaluations, have called for a delay in implementing the evaluations and PARCC testing.