Clark Teachers Are 'Highly Effective,' New Rankings Say

CLARK-GARWOOD, NJ — The state Department of Education has some good news for parents with students in the Clark Public Schools Distrcit.

More than half of the district's 174 teachers received "highly effective" ratings, according to the state Department of Education's staff evaluations based on the 2015-2016 school year. While Garwood School District had more "effective" ratings for teachers.

Teachers and staff across the state are graded and categorized as “highly effective,” “effective," "partially effective" and "ineffective." Results were released last week.

In Clark: Out of 174 total teachers, 123 were found to be “highly effective.” Another 51 were found to be “effective." There are seven principals, assistant principals and vice principals in the district.

In Garwood: Out of 32 total teachers, 27 were found to be “effective,” with no data provided for the other three categories.

Clark's ratio of "highly effective" teachers came out to be nearly 5.4, and it was ranked 173rd out of 496 districts on Patch’s list, which is based on number of teachers per 100 students. While Garwood had a ratio of 7.1 for "effective" teachers and a ranking of 105th. (See the full list here.)

Nearly two-thirds of the state’s 112,000 teachers were found to be “effective” and another third were “highly effective,” according to a report from NJ Spotlight.

State law requires each district to use a standardized system to evaluate teacher performance based on classroom observation and a form of student performance. It has been in effect since the State Legislature passed a tenure system five years ago to determine the strongest and weakest teachers in the state.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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