N.J. education commissioner announces tenure reform

“It’s the last frontier of school reform, the ‘people’ part of it, the third rail, the thing we never quite get to while we nibble around the edges,” Cerf said. “If the single biggest variable is the effectiveness of the teacher in the classroom, shouldn’t we do everything in our power to influence that?”

Cerf explained that the state has done a “truly spectacularly lousy job of evaluating teachers,” citing statistics that show how almost no teachers are fired for incompetence, and proposing a new system “wholly based on student learning.”

Assessments of student learning would examine personal improvement by comparing an individual student’s performance before studying with a particular teacher to his or her performance after a year with that teacher. Districts would be allowed to customize their standards, with some limitations.

“We don’t want to launch another race to the bottom with districts gradually weakening this evaluation system over time, so we would require that the key parameters of this evaluation system be mandatory and that the dismantling of this system would be a prohibitive subject of collective bargaining agreements,” Cerf said.

The system, considering student assessment as its main factor, would divide teachers into four tiers of effectiveness. A high ranking would be “one of the primary factors in [a] salary increase,” while a ranking in the lowest tier for two consecutive years would be cause for termination, Cerf said.

Specific architecture of the evaluation system will appear in an administration task force report to be released on March 1.

Wednesday’s proposal indicates a softening of the Christie administration’s rhetoric. Christie pledged in last month’s State of the State address to “eliminate teacher tenure,” but Cerf’s speech redefined tenure as a layer of job security awarded based on merit.

Rather than a permanent state of job security based on seniority, the reforms will use evaluation results to determine “how [teachers] earn and whether [they] keep the protections of tenure.”

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“We’re not engaging in this conversation to bash teachers. It is pro-teacher to say that excellence in the classroom should be recognized. It is pro-teacher to change antiquated rules that treat teachers like interchangeable commodities,” Cerf said.

Teachers ranked in the top two categories of the evaluation rankings for three years in a row would receive tenured status. A tenured teacher would lose tenured status, though not necessarily his or her teaching position, after one year’s ranking as “ineffective” or two years’ ranking as “partially effective.”

“Neither the governor nor I are against unions. We are for certain policies that help kids and narrow the achievement gap,” Cerf insisted. “If the unions support those positions, we are the first to say they are our allies.”

The New Jersey Education Association, the largest teacher union in the state, has opposed the evaluation proposal.

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Cerf’s speech also called for a reform of “mutual consent” to end the practice by which teachers can be assigned to schools at which they do not want to teach and principals can be required to accept unwanted teachers.

Christie announced the appointment of Cerf to state education commissioner in December. He has not yet been confirmed by the state legislature. Cerf previously served as deputy New York schools chancellor and a board member of the Knowledge is Power Program charter schools in Newark.