Jersey Jazzman reports on the annual meeting between State Commissioner Chris Cerf and the New Jersey superintendents. Unlike previous meetings, there were few questions, few signs of life.
Have they given up, JJ wondered. He unites a news story, which says:
“Compared with previous convocations at which tensions were high and questions were plentiful, the more than 300 school leaders gathered yesterday at Jackson Liberty High School appeared to be getting used to the new world order under Cerf and his boss.
Gary McCartney, the South Brunswick superintendent and president of the state’s superintendents group, which hosted the event, said he saw the three years of convocations with Cerf as a period of evolution.
“I think people are beginning to assimilate,” he said. “In the first year, it was kicking and screaming, hoping (the initiatives) would go away. The second was wringing your hands and whining, thinking they would go away. Now you say, I don’t have any more tantrums, I think we’re going to do this.”
JJ points out that any one of the three superintendents in the room knew more about education than Cerf and his Broadie fellows.
He writes:
“The primary function of this blog over the past three years has been to catalog the many sins Christie and Cerf have committed against New Jersey’s public schools, including:
*A failure of state control in Newark, Paterson, Jersey City, and now Camden.
*Cerf’s insistence on bringing unqualified, poorly-trained staff into the NJDOE and the large urban districts.
*A despicable retreat from funding equity in our schools.
*The imposition of an innumerate teacher evaluation system that has never been properly field tested.
*The imposition of bizarre schemes that have never worked, like merit pay.
*The imposition of curricular and testing changes that have never been properly vetted.
*A rampant expansion of privatization that both undermines democratic control of our schools and rewards poor educational and fiscal practices.
*The lowest morale of the NJ teaching corps seen in a generation, precipitated by Christie’s blatant lies to educators about their compensation, his truly reprehensible behavior in public appearances, and his personal hypocrisy regarding his own children’s education.
As JJ says, “They only win when you give up.”
Help is on the way.
I am speaking to the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors on October 17. They will hear you, JJ. They will hear you loud and clear. They will not give up. And they will win, despite the efforts of Cerf and Christie to break their spirit.
