Schools

Educators Differ on Deployment of Race to The Top Funding

Dept. of Education awards $38M to New Jersey.

The state of New Jersey will be receiving more federal funding for education, but Madison educators are split on whether the money will be going where it's most needed.

In December, the federal government awarded New Jersey nearly $38 million in Race to the Top funding. The expectation is that the money will underpin Gov. Chris Christie’s education reform agenda, which include plans to use test scores to evaluate teacher performance.

"I am excited about the possibility of getting some money for the advancement of the teaching and learning process," Madison Schools Superintendent Michael Rossi said. "I believe the area we can interface with the new Department of Education direction is within the evaluation of teaching faculty."

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Trenton eliminated all state aid to the district in 2010, and the district lost a  cumulative $2.9 million in funding for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, President Lisa Ellis before the schools budget went before voters. 

But Rossi was upbeat about the possibilities for the Race to the Top money.

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"We have developed a system based on the Charlotte Danielson Frameworks and that is the one of the areas the state is using as a method to evaluate staff," he said.

The Framework for Teaching, developed by consultant Charlotte Danielson, "is a research-based set of components of instruction, grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching," according to The Danielson Group's website.

"The Framework may be used as the foundation of a school or district's mentoring, coaching, professional development, and teacher evaluation process, thus linking all those activities together and helping teachers become more thoughtful practitioners."

Rossi said, "Since we are already using that system, I am anticipating Madison’s funding to be targeted in that area. Possibilities include professional development, the purchase of technology that will enable us to digitize the Danielson Frameworks, and furtherance of our professional learning communities."

Robert Grundfest, a teacher at and president of the Madison Education Association teachers' union, welcomed the increase in funding, but disagreed about what it would be used for.

"Any money is welcome to make up for the severe cuts that Gov. Christie has made over the past two years," he said. "According to the Department of Education, though, the money will go to pilot programs and towards developing state tests, presumably for the Governor's teacher evaluation program.

"I would be hard-pressed to find a less effective use of these dollars. We need to directly fund programs that will benefit children in classrooms, not more tests that will take time away from the curriculum."


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