Churn in New Jersey: Education Commissioner Chris Cerf Leaves to Flog Software

After spending three years doing his level best to destroy public education in New Jersey, Christopher Cerf, Chris Christie's handpicked Education Commissioner, is leaving to take a job flogging software to public schools as the CEO of Amplify Insight, a division of Amplify, Inc. He'll be working for his old boss, former New York City Schools Chancellor and fellow reformer Joel Klein. One thing you must admire about education reformers, they not only say they believe in "churn", they live it. Cerf has churned himself into a highly paid CEO position where he can make lots of money selling software to support his vision of churning over the public schools to privatizers who are promoting online learning as "individualized."

Cerf is a graduate of that reformer breeding ground, the Broad Urban Superintendent's Academy and like every other graduate of that "school" Cerf is in it "for the kids." Does this quote sound familiar? "As Commissioner of Education in New Jersey, I represent only one constituency – our students.  Too often in education reform, we focus on adult interests at the expense of children’s interests." In a video on Big Think, Cerf also says that he thinks consensus and collaboration are the enemy of progress. He's not interested in collaboration, of course, because he is in it for the kids. Let's take a look at what Chris Cerf has done for the kids of New Jersey.

• Along with 45 other state education leaders, accepted federal Race to the Top bribes to implement the untested Common Core State Standards, PARCC testing and teacher accountability based on test scores.
• Turned the public schools of Newark over to a crony from New York, Cami Anderson, with limited educational experience and an apparent disdain for the wants, needs and desires of children and parents in Newark.
• Turned the public schools in Camden over to another New York crony, a 32 year-old Wall Street financial analyst, who oversaw the unpopular charter school co-locations in New York City, before working with Cami Anderson in Newark on the unpopular One Newark Plan. Camden parents should get ready for the One Camden plan soon.
• Accepted a Broad Foundation grant for the public schools of Newark contingent on the re-election of Christie and the increase in charter schools in that community.
• Showed he cared about kids by making sure they are subject to more standardized tests, including new tests for 2015 for which the students have not been prepared.
• Pushed through a teacher evaluation plan unsupported by research and wildly unpopular with the teachers who will be the targets of the plan and the administrators who will use it.
• Continued a policy of zero growth in the budget for administration of schools despite the call for more and more teacher observations in the new accountability design. 
• Attacked teacher job security through attacks on due process.
• Destroyed teacher morale in a state that is among the highest achieving in the nation.
• Pushed a failed reform agenda of charter schools and vouchers, while ignoring the very real problems of poverty and segregation plaguing urban public schools in New Jersey.

Chris Cerf was in it for the kids for his 3 years in New Jersey. Apparently the teachers of New Jersey, who have made a career commitment to work with the children of New Jersey.were not sufficiently "in it for the kids." They needed to be chastised in the press, victimized by a clearly flawed evaluation system, and marginalized by an administration who did not want to collaborate with those on the front lines of public education. 

So Commissioner Cerf, best of luck to you as you go to your new job as the CEO of a company selling software "for the kids." The teachers, parents and students of New Jersey will stay right here trying to make the best of the mess you've made. Don't let your golden parachute land on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Smoke, Mirrors, and Longer School Days

Not satisfied with lengthening the commute for residents of New Jersey using the George Washington Bridge, Gov. Chris Christie now wants to lengthen the school day for children. A cynic might say that Christie is trying to distract attention from his recent scandals by once again attacking his favorite target, teachers and public education. A cynic might also point out that Christie has championed, over the years, lots of education reform initiatives that denigrate public education and feed into the efforts to privatize education. Here we need mention only charter school proliferation, vouchers, standardized testing and teacher evaluation based on unreliable test measures. A cynic might also point to Christie appointees like State Commissioner of Education, Chris Cerf and the underqualified, but pliant, superintendents put in place in Newark and Camden as examples of Christie’s disdain for real educators. For an excellent recounting of the political agenda behind this call for a longer school day please see this blog post from teacherbiz.

But please allow me, for a moment, to park my cynicism on the GWB on ramp. Let’s say that Christie’s call to lengthen the school day and calendar year is a legitimate proposal. Does the proposal have merit? From my reading of the research the answer would be yes, but…

There is actually quite a bit of research available on longer school days or longer school years. Here is what we know with some certainty. This information comes from The Chalkboard Project’s review of the research on extended learning time.

·         The connection between time and learning is not straightforward, and depends on how effectively learning time is being used.

·         Additional learning time is effective only when existing learning time is well used.

·         Extended learning time can be effective for all children, but is more effective for children of economic disadvantage than for children from middle or high socio-economic status households.

·         Extended learning time programs have been more effective in primary and secondary grades than in middle school.

·         Extending the school day is more cost effective than extending the school year.

·         Any program should start small, gather evidence and expand over time.

So, a serious proposal for extended days should include the following:

·         An audit of how well school time is used currently. There can be a wide difference between time in school for children and time devoted to learning. Schools should work to maximize current learning time, before adding additional time. This could be as broad based as reorganizing school schedules for maximum learning and as simple as making sure the public address system is turned off during the school day.

·         Provide a combination of instructional support and enrichment activities likely to engage all students in learning.

·         Include arts exploration and education along with core subject enrichment or remediation.

·         Involve teachers in the planning, leadership and implementation of the program.

·         Involve the parents and community in the planning of the program.

If I ruled the education world, I would include two other things in the extended day/extended year plan. The first may well be the best way to use a longer day that could be devised.

1.    Teacher Professional Development – The best possible use I can imagine for a longer school day is to use the time for teachers to meet together to share ideas and improve practice. Here I am thinking about the Professional Learning Community model, where teachers meet together collegially to discuss lessons, strengthen instructional practice, problem solve individual student concerns and receive occasional input from supervisor or experts in various fields. Teachers in other countries use models like Lesson Study to continually improve practice. In this country teachers only seem to be valued for the time they spend in front of students. In years past unions fought long and hard to get professionals a few minutes of planning time during the school day. Political leaders and the public need to understand that real, intensive professional collaboration could do more than any other single factor to improve student learning.

2.    Summer Literacy Enrichment – Summer loss syndrome is real. It is well documented that children living in poverty suffer a loss of literacy skills over the summer months. Some school districts have combatted this by extending the school year into the summer and taking brief breaks several times during the regular school year. I don’t see that happening in most places. What all school districts should commit to is a program of literacy enrichment for children over the summer. This could go a long way to reducing some of the summer loss that many children experience.

Christie has promised that details of his extended day plan will come out later. When they do, we will know if this is a serious plan or just another way to batter teachers and public education. Let’s see if the plan acknowledges the research; let’s see if the plan is fully funded.; let’s see if teachers are included in the decision making and let’s see if this plan is about improving school experiences for the public school children of New Jersey or if it is just another traffic cone on the entrance ramp to a strong public education system.

Chris Christie and the "Failure Factories"

Chris Christie is tremendously popular in New Jersey primarily because he casts himself as a truth teller and New Jersey tough guy in the Tony Soprano mode. In these days of wishy-washy politicians and an endless stream of political correctness coming over the airwaves, Christie’s in-your-face style resonates. He will likely skate to an easy re-election in a few weeks.

Unfortunately, the characteristics that make the Governor popular do not make him a good leader. Certainly in the area of education, Governor Christie is more demagogue than leader. The truth of this was brought home again by Christie’s recent characterization of 200 public schools in New Jersey as “failure factories.” This kind of rhetoric makes a good sound bite, but it does irreparable harm to the children, parents and educators of New Jersey.

Why would the Governor of the State of New Jersey demonize children and educators in this way? For political purposes, of course. Christie is anti-teacher union and pro privatization of education. He looks to increase the numbers of charter schools and push a voucher measure through the legislature. Both of these initiatives take money away from public schools and place it into private hands. If you are still under any delusions that charter schools are public schools, please read this from Anthony Cody of Education Week.

Of course, there is a major problem in the inner cities of New Jersey and doing nothing to improve the educational opportunities of children in these schools is not acceptable. But what would an actual leader do when faced with the daunting issues of turning around education in the State’s urban areas?  Well, a leader might look around and notice that his State has the third highest educational achievement of any state in the country, behind only Massachusetts and Vermont. That must mean that many public schools in New Jersey are doing very well indeed. A leader might try to find out what these schools are doing right.

What that leader would find is many high achieving schools and school districts throughout the State of New Jersey. That leader would also find that virtually all of those schools had strong teacher unions, tenure and seniority rules, reasonable working conditions and competitive pay and benefits. The leader would also find a healthy mix of experienced and newer teachers, programs for continued professional development and a staff of teachers, support staff and administrators dedicated to student well-being and achievement.

The leader might notice that these schools had a rich curriculum that included lots of opportunities in the core subjects, but also in arts education, athletics and co-curricular activities. The leader might also note that the school buildings themselves were in good repair and had an adequate supply of educational materials, including well-stocked and well-staffed libraries, to support the teachers and children.

A leader might then conclude that unions, tenure and seniority are not what is wrong with the schools. That conversely strong unions, competitive salaries and benefits and good working conditions actually make a school attractive to a prospective teacher. The leader might further conclude that a bare bones curriculum, crumbling infrastructure and staffing reductions would not be in the best interest of a thorough and efficient urban education.

Finally, this leader would go back to the office and have some Department of Education minion bring him a socio-economic map of New Jersey. There he would see, in living color, the answer to school improvement. “Wow!”, he might say to the minion, “Did you notice that all the high achieving schools in New Jersey are in relatively wealthy areas and all the “failing schools” are in high poverty areas?”

“But poverty is no excuse for poor schools, Governor.” might squeal the minion. “No,” the wise leader might respond, “it is not an excuse, but it is a reason.”

A real leader could only then conclude that vouchers and charter schools were not going to change the calculus for the inner city child. Only through a combined effort to do something about poverty and to ensure that urban schools were properly funded could real inroads be made.

A leader would then try to move forward with a plan on two fronts.

What we get from Christie is not leadership, but demagoguery. We get a cynical appeal to our baser emotions and prejudices, instead of a visionary plan that might make a real positive difference in children’s lives. With his sound bite outbursts about “failure factories”, Governor Christie continues to throw urban children, parents and educators under the school bus.