New Jersey State Board of Education Considers Significant Changes to Evaluation Code, Announces Public Testimony Sessions on New Student Learning Standards

Posted · Add Comment

New Proposal for Chapter 10 Educator Effectiveness

 

At the New Jersey State Board of Education meeting on February 5th, 2020, the Department proposed additional amendments to Chapter 10, “Educator Effectiveness”. 

 

Back in December, the Department proposed to readopt the chapter with minor amendments.  Comments submitted during public testimony pointed out additional areas that warranted regulatory change.  The new, additional amendments proposed on Wednesday address three areas:  Corrective Action Plans, School Improvement Panels and Components of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric.

 

Corrective Action Plans (CAPs)

 

Currently, the regulations in place require that CAPs for all ineffective or partially ineffective staff be in place by October 31 of the school year.  If the teaching staff member does not agree with the content of the corrective action plan, the designated supervisor is empowered to make the final determination on the content.  The Department’s new proposal would require the CAP to be in place within 25 teaching staff member working days following September 1 of the school year following the year of evaluation, and ensure that an additional administrator be involved in settling a dispute related to the content of the CAP. 

 

School Improvement Panels (ScIP)

 

Current regulations require every school in each district to annually establish and convene a ScIP.  There is no requirement on the amount of times a ScIP must meet. The Department’s new proposal would establish a frequency for ScIPs to meet three times a year and promote intra-district consistency of implementation by requiring an annual meeting (in addition to the three) in which the ScIP teams are collectively assembled for the purpose of discussing district policy and practice.

 

Weighting the Components of a Teacher’s Evaluation

 

The Department proposes reducing the minimum student achievement component to 20 percent in order to create equity for both teachers of tested and non-tested subjects and grade levels, enabling each group to have 15 percent of their final evaluation to be composed of the SGO portion of their summative score. 

 

The Board voted to move the proposal on to publication, but not without first expressing some concerns.  There will be a public testimony session on this code proposal. NJPSA will provide you with the date as soon as we have it. 

 

New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS)

 

Also at the February meeting, the Department presented draft NJSLS to the State Board of Education in the areas of World Languages, Computer Science and Design Thinking, Career Readiness, Life Literacies and Key Skills. 

 

There are three public hearing sessions scheduled to obtain feedback on the new Student Learning Standards:  

 

  • February 24th at the Warren County Technical School from 6 PM to 8 PM 
  • March 4th at the NJDOE from 2 PM to 4 PM
  • March 10th at Camden County College from 4 PM to 6 PM.

 

 

Adjustment to High School Equivalency Assessment Passing Scores

 

In December 2013, the New Jersey State Board of Education adopted the assessments offered to adult education students to receive a state-issued high school diploma as well as the associated passing scores for each of these assessments. New Jersey is the only state to have a passing score which is beyond the national recommended standard for high school equivalency.  New Jersey’s passing average is approximately 10% lower than the national average. Accordingly, the Department is recommending adjusting the 2013 Approved scores and has proposed new scores that it believes would be a fairer metric of our adult high school students when compared to other states.