State Releases New Teacher Evaluations, How Did Marlboro and Colts Neck Schools Do?

By JASON KOESTENBLATT and MICHELLE SAHN (Patch Staff)

July 16, 2015

Under a new teacher and administrator evaluation system in the state of New Jersey, educators in the 2013-14 were graded on a scale of four measures.

Results were released by the state Wednesday.

Some 30.5 percent of the Marlboro district’s 430 teachers and 21.4 percent of Colts Neck’s 117 teachers were deemed highly effective; 69.5 percent of Marlboro teachers and 78.6 percent of Colts Neck teachers were ranked effective.

Teachers in each school were ranked on a four-level scale, from ineffective, to partially ineffective, to effective, to highly effective as part of the new AchieveNJ evaluation system.

Because the disclosure of evaluation data of any particular employee is, by law, completely confidential, discrepancies in the overall numbers will be seen. The Department of Education calls this its suppression rate, meaning it won’t release the figures of specific categories of educators. From the DOE, regarding suppression:

1. Records that have n-size < 10 are suppressed, e.g., if 9 or fewer staff received a rating of Ineffective, the record will be suppressed (the record will not be part of the data file). The total will always be displayed irrespective of n-size.
2. When one performance level is suppressed due to n-size, and all 4 performance level ratings are present, the next lowest staff count will be suppressed (record will not be part of the file), to disallow roll-up to find the rating count for the first level suppressed and thus potentially identify educators.
3. Records with 100% staff in one performance level are suppressed, as per state law (since in this case, any viewer would know each educator’s evaluation rating). In such cases, only the total staff count record will be provided as part of the data file.”

For schools, the data showed:

Marlboro

• Frank Defino Central Elementary School Effective 18 Highly Effective 28 Total 46
• Frank J. Dugan Elementary School Effective 39 Highly Effective 13 Total 52
• David C Abbott Early Learning Center Effective 12 Highly Effective 17 Total 29
• Marlboro Elementary School Effective 39 Total 44
• Marlboro Memorial Middle School Effective 70 Highly Effective 20 Total 90
• Marlboro Middle School Effective 95 Highly Effective 10 Total 105
• Robertsville Elementary School Effective 31 Highly Effective 18 Total 49
• Asher Holmes Elementary School Effective 18 Highly Effective 29 Total 47
• District Total TEACHERS Effective 299 Highly Effective 131 Total 430

Colts Neck

• Cedar Drive Middle School Effective 43 Total 50
• Conover Road Elementary School Effective 26 Highly Effective 10 Total 36
• Conover Road Primary School Effective 23 Total 31
• District Total TEACHERS Effective 92 Highly Effective 25 Total 117

A total of 15 Marlboro building administrators – principals, assistant principals, vice principals – were evaluated, and 11 were deemed highly effective. Four administrators in Colts Neck were evaluated. All data submitted to the state was self-reported, meaning evaluations were done by administrators and colleagues inside each school building.

The majority of teachers across the state evaluated well, the DOE reported, but there were still a percentage of teachers that would need further training or changes in their instruction techniques.

According to the report, some 2,900 teachers – providing instruction to more than 180,000 students that school year – across the state were considered ineffective or partially effective, the state noted. As a result of those ratings, AchieveNJ requires those teachers to receive extra support and demonstrate progress over time to earn or maintain tenure, the report said.

“The real story of the first year of AchieveNJ,” said Peter Shulman, Assistant Commissioner of Education and Chief Talent Officer in a press release, “is that educators have risen to the challenge of improving feedback for all teachers and leaders. While one year of this new data is insufficient for identifying sustained trends or making sweeping conclusions about the state’s teaching staff, we are proud of this significant improvement and the personalized support all educators are now receiving.”

See the rankings of every school in the state here.