Millburn School Officials Sign Off on Race to the Top

State education officials submitted their Race to the Top application to the federal government on Tuesday, and Millburn School officials were among those who signed off on the application.

The Board of Education last week agreed to submit a memorandium of agreement to the county on the application. Jeff Waters, Board of Education Finance Committee chairman, said the district could receive at least $100,000 as part of the federal grant.

Schools Supt. Richard Brodow said it remains to be seen how much the district would actually receive. Additionally, he said, it's still unknown how districts would be allowed to use the money.

New Jersey is competing in the second round of the national grant application competition. Race to the Top is the Obama Administration's $4.35 billion education reform incentive program, granting hundreds of millions of dollars to state's agreeing to implement reforms. State applications are judged on a number of factors including assessment standards, school choice issues, charter school numbers and teacher performance. In the first round, which New Jersey lost, winning grants were given to Tennessee and Delaware. In winning the second round, New Jersey would receive $400 million in federal funds.

But the grant application has been a point of controversy as it created reform for teacher pay in linking it to merit and student performance. State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler negotiated a deal last week for the state teachers union to sign off on the application. The Millburn Education Association has signed off on the deal.

A state Education Department press release states a merit-pay system will financially reward highly effective teachers and serve as an incentive for adequate teachers to improve their own abilities. It also rewards effective teachers who accept assignments in low-performing schools.

Schundler said in the release, "These reforms are the beginning, not the end, to improving New Jersey's education system. This bold reform agenda will continue regardless of whether we receive federal funding.  It is critical that we continue to implement good ideas, regardless of special interests, if we are going to improve the quality of education we provide our children."

Gov. Chris Christie's reform plans in the application include several programs that emphasize teacher quality through fair and thorough evaluations, including measures to enhance school districts' capability to measure student learning and performance, the release states. According to the release, those plans are:

• Incentivizing Quality Instruction with Merit-Pay.  New Jersey will design, evaluate, and implement merit pay programs that pay individual teachers based on student achievement.  The system will also reward effective teachers who accept assignments in low-performing schools.
  
• Evaluating Teacher Training Programs.  This application proposes to evaluate teacher training programs, so that the most effective programs can be identified and teachers schooled in those programs can be recruited.
  
• Putting Educational Effectiveness Over Seniority.  In addition to rewarding and promoting effective teachers, it is necessary to weed-out ineffective teachers.  This application also proposes to make it easier for school districts to terminate ineffective teachers, using teacher evaluations based on student achievement as the basis for decisions to grant tenure, promote and develop teachers.  In the event of layoffs or a workforce reduction, educational effectiveness will replace seniority as the main factor in determining who to retain.
  
• Successful Schools are Led by Successful Principals. Christie recognizes the role that principals play in fostering a successful, high-achieving education. This application proposes to offer a financial incentive to effective principals, as it does to effective teachers, to relocate to low-performing schools.