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Last month during a public hearing, New Jersey teachers urged changes in how they are evaluated, telling lawmakers that burdensome paperwork is a factor in the current teacher shortage.
Lawmakers are preparing to update how public school teachers are evaluated more than a decade after the state’s current teacher evaluation law was enacted. The Educator Evaluation Review Task Force is charged with recommending changes to the educator evaluation system by Sept. 30.
Currently, teacher evaluation scores are based on classroom observations and student achievement. One component of the score comes from “student growth objectives,” which are academic goals for students that teachers set with their principal or supervisor at the start of the school year. Teachers said the data collection process for student growth objectives, known as SGOs, can be burdensome and time-consuming.
While the evaluation process is under review, new student growth objective data for tenured teachers will not be collected this school year.
“There are simply not enough hours in the day to check off all the tasks we must accomplish during school. Teachers feel the burn of administrative paperwork and an unreasonable workload, and SGOs certainly add to the stress,” Colleen Grywacz, a teacher in the Hackettstown School District, said at the public hearing.
Grywacz cited the 2022 Gallup Panel Workforce Study, which found K-12 education to be the most stressful profession with a burnout rate of 44%.
Administrative load affecting recruitment, retention
In New Jersey, many school districts are facing severe teacher shortages as students head back to school. In Paterson, there are more than 150 open teaching positions. Many of the vacancies statewide are in hard-to-fill areas like science, world languages, and special education.
“We find ourselves at a critical juncture where talented educators are leaving the profession at an alarming rate,” Grywacz said, adding that reducing administrative burdens is one way to aid teacher recruitment and retention.
Even pausing the data collection on the student growth objectives for one year makes a big difference, said Grywacz, echoing a common sentiment from other teachers who testified.
Jon Coniglio, teacher and president of the Dover Education Association, said the amount of paperwork and time spent on teacher evaluations is the top concern of members at every grade level.
“Our staff does not mind being evaluated, but we have lost a lot of great teachers yearly because of the amount of paperwork and the amount of testing that is done,” Coniglio said.
Bob Morrison, a board of education member from Watchung Hills Regional High School, said the current teacher evaluation law is not working.
Should evaluations consider state test scores?
“This is an environment where recruiting and retaining quality educators and administrators is becoming increasingly difficult,” Morrison said. “One of the issues many candidates and current practitioners face is the fact that TEACHNJ is burdensome, overwhelming, bureaucratic, and — based on prior practice — ineffective.”
The evaluation process takes valuable time away from teachers and administrators, Morrison said.
“The most common refrain I hear is, ‘All I want to do is teach,’ and that’s what we should want as well,” Morrison said.
Leanna Malinowsky, a teacher in Dover, said it’s important to balance evaluating educators with honoring their time. The more time teachers can focus on their work with students and their own professional development, the greater the impact they will have, Malinowsky said.
Gargi Adhikari, 2023-24 Hunterdon County teacher of the year, said last year’s county teacher-of-the-year group agrees that no evaluation should be based on student scores or state testing of students, since they do not give the full picture of how a teacher taught them.
Adhikari teaches special education in Readington Township and said many students have test anxiety, are not strong test-takers, or do not take tests seriously. Student performance measures are also influenced by students’ social, economic, and emotional environments, Adhikari said.
A major revision to TEACHNJ after 12 years
“Monitoring student growth and development is something teachers do all along. It should not be an indicator of teacher effectiveness,” Adhikari said.
More than 80 people signed up to testify, although far fewer joined the virtual hearing.
West-Windsor Plainsboro Regional School District Superintendent David Aderhold is leading the task force whose 13 members represent various education organizations and appointees of state lawmakers. It includes teachers, principals, and vice principals who are directly involved in the teacher evaluation process.
This marks the first time the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey, or TEACHNJ Act, will be revisited since it was enacted in 2012. State Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz, whose legislative district includes Newark, authored TEACHNJ and said she supports a reconsideration of the law. Ruiz is a member of the task force.
Hannah Gross covers education and child welfare for NJ Spotlight News via a partnership with Report for America. She covers the full spectrum of education and children’s services in New Jersey and looks especially through the lens of equity and opportunity. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.
