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But Barbara Keshishian is highly critical of governor

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state largest teachers' union, showed a piece of an olive branch Tuesday in reacting to Gov. Christie renewed call for a shakeup in how teachers are rated and laid off and how their pensions are handled but didn't ease up on criticism of his education proposals.

"NJEA is eager and willing to enter the discussion over education and pension reform in New Jersey, because we have much to add to that discussion," Barbara Keshishian said. "It calls for honesty and candor, yet today Governor Christie painted a picture of his first year in office that does not match up with the experience of people who lived through it. He conveniently failed to mention his $1.3 billion in cuts to public education, but students, parents, and all New Jerseyans have paid steeply for them in larger class sizes, reduced programs, and higher property taxes."

"Instead, he wants to strip teachers of due process rights in order to fire more of them, while openly advocating for private school vouchers and more charter schools," Keshishian said of the governor‘s call to end tenure for teachers and have them laid off based their ability as educators.

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"His vision for pension reform is fatally flawed because he still refuses to admit his role in the state's failure to contribute one penny to the pension funds in 13 of the last 17 years," Keshishian said. "Slashing benefits and raising costs for employees will not solve the problem the state has created for itself. He must step up and lead by making regular, responsible state contributions. He finally said the state should do so, and we will hold him to that."

"Perhaps the biggest thing of all for the future of our state -- is education reform," Christie stated in his first State of the State address to the Legislature. "We cannot ask children and families stuck in chronically failing public schools to wait any longer. It is not acceptable that a child who is neglected in a New Jersey school must accept it because of their zip code."

Christie said he and the Legislature must empower public school principals, reform poor-performing public schools or close them, cut out-of-classroom costs and focus efforts on teachers and students.

"I propose that we reward the best teachers, based on merit, at the individual teacher level. I demand that layoffs, when they occur, be based on a merit system and not merely on seniority.

"I am committed to improving the measurement and evaluation of teachers, and I have an expert task force of teachers, principals, and administrators working on that issue right now," the governor said.

"And perhaps the most important step in that process is to give schools more power to remove underperforming teachers," he added. "The time for a national conversation on tenure is long past due. Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform. New Jersey lead the way again. The time to eliminate teacher tenure is now."

Keshishian responded, "His education agenda continues to rest on the assumption that standardized test scores are the most important measure of learning. Despite mountains of evidence showing that assumption is deeply flawed, he is insisting that teachers be evaluated, paid, and even fired based on how well they raise student test scores. He should allow his task force on evaluation to conduct honest research on the test score issue, rather than telling them what to conclude before they issue a report.

"His combative rhetoric is wearing thin," Keshishian concluded. "It's time for Governor Christie to work collaboratively with NJEA and the entire education community for reforms that are supported by research, and which will benefit all students."