By

Ray Pinney

“What you need to realize is that the parents’  view and perception of teachers has changed.  It is not what it was ten years ago”

Comment from a parent to Vincent Giordano, executive director of NJEA, at a Nov. 10 Garden State Coalition meeting.

Being a Jersey boy, I am sure that Gov. Christie attempted body surfing at New Jersey’s beaches at least once in his life.  I have no idea if he was any good at it, but it’s clear he does excel at riding political waves. 

The key to body surfing is timing. If you get a little too far out in front of the wave, it will crash down on you and your body can get slammed into the sand. If you are too slow, or start swimming too late, the wave just passes you by.   

Timing is key in politics, too. Skillful politicians can gauge how the “wave” of public opinion will break on different issues. When the public’s mood shifts, the existing power brokers (in this case the Democrats and the NJEA), are confused. Typically, those power brokers are using the same arguments and tactics that have worked in the past and can’t understand why they are not working now. Their message hasn’t changed, but suddenly, it isn’t  resonating with the public and they are losing political battles.   That’s because their wave has ended and they missed the new wave. All they can do is watch someone else’s ride.

Gov. Christie is riding a powerful wave in New Jersey and his critics can’t wait until it ends. (more…)

By

Ray Pinney

“Teachers are the single most important factor in a student’s success in school.  But today, the current method for evaluating the performance and effectiveness of educators throughout New Jersey is inadequate and unrelated to the most important goal we have and as parents, educators leaders: how well our children are learning.”

Governor Chris Christie

Like most of you, when I look back at my K-12 education there were many teachers who I thought were good, very few that I thought were poor – but also just a few who rose above everyone else and I thought were great.  I would not be overstating the fact that I think a couple that were even life-changers to me.  As a parent of public school students I find that I am sometimes rating my kids’ teachers (though I never say anything negative to my kids about their teachers). And to my good fortune, most of them have been very effective, and some I think are amazing.  Even some of the teachers that all the other parents said “were not who you want for your kids,” I found were effective.

Personally, those few teachers who I thought were superstars and life-changers I wish were somehow compensated for their great skills.   This, I believe, is a natural feeling and one that Governor Christie is trying to insert into public policy.  Governor Christie has created the Education Effectiveness Task Force, which has a goal to create an evaluation system that ties teacher compensation by more than 50% to student achievement.  While it seems logical to try to reward the best teachers more than the poor teachers, I believe that creating this system is much easier said than done. (more…)