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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Jersey Jazzman: Cerf and NJDOE: In Way Over Their Heads

Jersey Jazzman: Cerf and NJDOE: In Way Over Their Heads:


Cerf and NJDOE: In Way Over Their Heads

I'm searching around for a word that best describes my reaction to the latest bit of cant from NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf; my best response is "pathetic":
After first proposing that scores would amount to 35 percent of a performance evaluation for math and language arts teachers in grades 4-8, Cerf yesterday said that total would be trimmed to 30 percent for next year.
In addition, he said only the scores of students who had been enrolled with a given teacher 70 percent of the year would be applied to his or her rating. The previous level was 60 percent. [emphasis mine]
Seriously?

The notion that this little bit of mucking around with percentages makes up for the vast, serious problems withAchieveNJ, the new teacher evaluation system, is an act of enormous self-deception on the Commissioner's