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MID-YEAR REPORT ON ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN EDUCATION 2005
Commissioner William L. Librera
June 1, 2005

Commissioner Librera has grouped the state’s educational initiatives into five major themes:

-Teacher and administrator quality;
-Raising student achievement;
-Diverse and multiple paths for student success;
-Innovative and outstanding practices/programs; and
-Public engagement and communication and public accountability.

Teacher and Administrator Quality

The NJ Department of Education has done the following:

• Awarded 16 Distinguished Teacher Candidate designations to prospective educators who recently completed teacher preparatory programs at New Jersey colleges and universities.
• Announced the creation of a state-level task force designed to recommend ways to implement policy changes to ensure quality of teaching and learning in New Jersey public schools. Commissioner Librera charged the task force with making recommendations in the following areas:

-Recognizing and rewarding outstanding teaching by creating the endorsement for a teacher with advanced standing;

-Supporting and creating an evaluation design for struggling teachers; and

-Reorganizing schools for quality professional learning at all levels through a team and schoolwide learning process.

Dr. Morton Sherman, superintendent of the Cherry Hill School District, and Michael Cohan, chair of the Professional Teaching Standards Board and staff development and mentoring coordinator of the Union Township Public Schools, are co-chairpersons of the task force. The 40-member group met for the first time in March 2005.

Raising Student Achievement

The New Jersey Department of Education has done the following:

• Sponsored a workshop entitled "Closing the Achievement Gap" on May 24 at William Paterson University in Wayne. Representatives from thirty districts and individual schools made presentations on the successful, school-based, results-orientated strategies and practices they have developed and employed to close the achievement gap. Jonathan Kozol, a highly regarded expert on racial and education issues, was the keynote speaker at the workshop. Kozol, who has spent his career chronicling the prevalence of the achievement gap across racial, student and teacher lines, is the author of numerous books, including Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities. The Chicago Sun-Times once called him, "Today’s most eloquent spokesman for the disenfranchised."

Standards

• Received a $15,000 grant that the DOE will use over the next year to spur development of a statewide approach to increase knowledge about international education. The department intends to use the funds from the Longview Foundation to hold regional discussion forums that will lay the groundwork for a plan to increase knowledge and support of international education among New Jersey students and educators. A statewide task force on international education will use information gleaned from the forums to develop a five-year plan designed to infuse international knowledge and skills into New Jersey’s Core Curriculum Content Standards.

Early Childhood Education

• Acknowledged a new report issued by the Early Learning Improvement Consortium (ELIC), a partnership among the DOE and academic experts at several state colleges and universities that shows New Jersey’s Abbott preschool program has made significant progress in terms of classroom quality and student preparation for kindergarten. Entitled "Giant Steps for the Littlest Children: Progress in the Sixth Year of the Abbott Preschool Program," the report is an update of the initial findings of the third year of the ELIC study.
  
  
• The report details the marked improvement in Abbott classroom quality as the program has expanded from serving 19,000 children in the 1999-2000 school year to a projected enrollment for 2005-2006 of 43,000 children--over 80% of the total population of three- and four-year-olds in Abbott districts.

Literacy

• Sponsored a day-long symposium exploring the achievement gap, February 28, 2005. The symposium, "Closing the Achievement Gap: Believing, Achieving, Succeeding,"was held for invited participants at the Conference Center at Mercer County College. Participants, who for the most part were local school superintendents, examined local and global trends of student achievement and addressed educational practices that have been effective in an environment of diverse demographics and high standards. Featured speakers were Larry I. Bell, president of Multicultural America, Inc. and Dr. Ronald L. Capasso, associate professor of educational leadership at Rowan University.
  
• Sponsored the 3^rd Annual Reading Coach Conference May 25 at Rutgers. The conference, entitled "Side by Side: Working Together to Improve Literacy Instruction," offered workshops to over 450 participants from all over the state. Current coaches and client teachers presented over 25 literacy topics and showcased the best practices being implemented in New Jersey that advance reading.

Assessment

• Announced that students at all grade levels throughout the state participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP 2005). Over a six-week period, students in more than 300 New Jersey schools took the standards-based exams in reading, mathematics and science.
  
  
• Launched a new data management tool with the Educational Testing Service to help school districts throughout the state track student achievement, understand performance trends, improve teaching effectiveness, and analyze results for NCLB requirements.
  
  
• Proposed phasing out over three years beginning in 2008 the Special Review Assessment (SRA) which is the alternative math and literacy assessment administered to students who do not pass the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

Diverse and Multiple Paths for Student Achievement

• The Department of Education has done the following:

Approved the applications of five new charter schools in mid-January. The successful applicants were:

Central Jersey Arts Charter School, Plainfield, Union County;

Ecole de la Mer: French Immersion Charter School of New Jersey, Upper Township, Cape May County;

Environment Community Opportunity Charter School (ECO Charter School), Camden City, Camden County;

Union County TEAMS (Technology, Engineering, Architecture, Math & Science) Charter School, Plainfield, Union County; and

University Heights Charter School, Newark, Essex County

Three schools have indicated that they intend to welcome their first students in September 2005. Two schools were approved by the Commissioner with the understanding that they would open in September 2006, upon successful completion of a year of planning.

• Sponsored "The Success Triangle: High School, College and Work" as a first-ever statewide conference sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Education’s Office of Vocational-Technical, Career and Innovative Programs. Secondary and postsecondary administrators, faculty members, counselors and business industry representatives convened in Trenton for a day-long program on how high school educators, college faculty and administrators, and potential employers can develop successful partnerships for students.

Innovative and Outstanding Practices and Programs

The Department of Education has done the following:

• Recognized eleven New Jersey schools on January 5, 2005 for their award-winning character education programs. Representatives from the schools attended a ceremony held at the Department of Education, where they were cited for the honors they received from the Character Education Partnership (CEP). Ten schools received Promising Practice awards and one school received CEP’s National School of Character award.
  
• Recognized Chelsea Heights Elementary School in Atlantic City, Gladys Cannon Nunery School #29 in Jersey City and Robert Treat Academy Charter School in Newark as New Jersey’s 2004 Title I Distinguished Schools. The three schools were selected for their overall effectiveness in curriculum, instruction and professional development; for the working partnerships that they have established with the families of their students and the surrounding communities; and for other innovations that have contributed to their extraordinary student success.
  
• Celebrated the 25^th Annual Governor’s Awards in Arts Education May 26 at The College of New Jersey by honoring 18 educators and 84 students from throughout the state with awards for their outstanding accomplishments. The students were selected by national and statewide organizations for their exemplary work in creative writing, music, dance, theatre and the visual arts. The educators received awards from several cooperating national and state arts organizations for their exceptional commitment and contributions to arts education.
  
• Honored the 2004-2005 Title I Distinguished Schools and Best Practices/Star Schools at a recognition ceremony/luncheon at the Doubletree Hotel in Somerset on June 2. The Title I Distinguished Schools and Best Practices/Star schools programs highlight outstanding classroom practices and curriculum and model schools of excellence throughout the entire state. The ceremony recognized three Title I Distinguished Schools, six Star Schools and 31 Best Practices selected from a field of approximately 750 applications. Star Schools that were selected span the state. The link to all of the honored schools and programs is at http://www.nj.gov/njded/news/2005/0601award_a.htm

Public Communication, Engagement and Accountability

The Department of Education has done the following:

• Released the 2004 New Jersey School Report Cards to the public on February 2, 2005. The school report cards contain detailed statistical profiles of all public schools in the state. The state-mandated annual reports enable members of the public to gauge their school’s educational progress.
  
  
• Released the 2005 Comparative Spending Guide. The guide is a statistical report that details how local public school districts in New Jersey allocate their financial resources as compared to other districts with similar configurations of grade levels and size.

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