This dissertation examines the impact of the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act on teacher tenure revocation in New Jersey. Employing a qualitative content analysis approach, the study analyzes 270 arbitration decisions from 2012 to 2023 to identify the specific legislative provisions that most…

Restrictions on collective bargaining are spreading. But while reformers are right to question current labor practices in education, they're wrong to believe that bargaining prohibitions will solve the problems. A smarter approach would begin by putting down the sledgehammer wielded in Wisconsin and picking up a scalpel by pushing for laws aimed…

Charter school boards enter into a critical bargain: autonomy for accountability. Compared with their traditional district counterparts, they operate with relative freedom in curriculum, hiring, budgeting, and other operational decisions. In exchange, they are held accountable for student performance in ways that traditional district schools are…

The allure of using data to improve performance is a source of tremendous activity in the education field today. "Data use" has spurred a wide variety of reforms at all different levels of the education system, ranging from infrastructure augmentation to state databases, to district dashboard systems that collect and display an array of…

Targeted or universal pre-K? Direct instruction or learning through play? These and other debates are heating up as more and more young children across the country gain access to pre-K programs. Now there's a single volume that spotlights today's most urgent pre-K debates, explores each one from all sides, and paves the way for sound, educated…

A major focus of charter school research has been the potential impact of increased school choice on student sorting by race/ethnicity and socio-economic status. Researchers have argued that charter schools may increase segregation by allowing families to separate into more homogeneous school communities. Yet surprisingly, little attention has…

As teachers, administrators, and members of intervention teams use student performance data to inform instructional decisions and monitor implementation of tiered instruction in a Response to Intervention (RTI) model, assuring fidelity of implementation or treatment integrity continues to be a challenge. This article describes how one school…

What happens when teams from 57 cities building afterschool systems gather to discuss two key system responsibilities--improving afterschool programs and using data for informed decision-making? Lots of rich discussion. This report covers a national afterschool conference held in February 2013. It details what mayors, program providers, system…

Uses survey methodology to investigate elementary and middle school teachers' actual, preferred, and deprived participation in 16 areas of school-level decision-making involving New Jersey's whole-school reform program over 2-year period. Finds, for example, that teachers had less than preferred participation in all 16 areas and high levels of…

Recent high school reform efforts strongly recommend that schools model democratic principles and give students, teachers, parents, and community members a significant role in school governance and the decision-making process. Specific recommendations include the creation of site-based decision-making councils, student leadership forums, and…

This paper describes second-year outcomes in three New Jersey schools that participated in the Effective Demonstration Schools Project, a grants program that encouraged school-based improvement. The purpose of the three-year grants, awarded during the 1985-86 school year, was to improve students' basic skills performance through the application of…

Outlines the six factors for successful educational reform: (1) key parties working together; (2) a strong base of teacher support; (3) teachers at the center of curricular revision; (4) sufficient funding from a variety of sources; (5) commitment to school-based decision making; (6) a close connection between curriculum and technology. (AEF)

This document brings together the fruits of the work that the Trenton, New Jersey school district did between 1970-73 to create a new system for administering innovation and assuming responsibility for the spending of millions of dollars in Federal grants. It contains material relevant to a school district looking to implement a project management…

The seminar began with a report of some research that W.M. Phillips, Jr. had done in Newark. Three purposes guided the design of that study of educational change and race from 1958 to 1972: First, there was the fundamental curiosity to discover the changing nature of participation by the Black community in the creation and implementation of public…

This study is intended as a resource and a tool for those involved in the evaluation, monitoring, or self-review of school management teams. The information presented is based on first-hand experiences of n = 838 elementary and middle school teachers from 55 schools who were directly involved with the implementation and operations of school…