What are We Teaching?

Upon entering office, Governor Chris Christie advocated for public education reform.  The system he intends to implement does not focus on improving public education. Rather, it is an aggressive effort to cut the NJ state education budget by $820 million.

As a student, I have been taught to value on the quality of my work rather than the grade I attain for my work.  This is not just a lesson but for many enduring principle.  By focusing on reducing funding at the cost of a quality education, Governor Christie is blatantly ignoring this principle.  Additionally, he is focusing on test scores above all else. He intends to reward public school teacher’s salaries according to test scores.  This encourages and even forces teachers to design their curriculum around a test taking strategy, which should be a small component of a dynamic learning environment instead of the primary focus of school.  Teachers should be encouraged to help each and every student to foster a “love of learning” rather than worrying about high test scores effecting their salary.

Many urban public schools have repeatedly failed to reach their federal testing standards.  Fourteen out of fifteen public schools in Plainfield failed the federal progress test last school year.   According to Governor Christie’s plans, district teachers would be penalized for this lack of achievement in a system that needs the best possible teachers to succeed.  Most teachers already opt to work at highly ranked schools. This concept of merit pay will fail to encourage the best and the brightest educators to the districts that need them most.   As young people look forward to invigorating careers and hopes of becoming good teachers, our state should encourage teachers to work in educational environments of varying opportunity. 

High school students often hope to continue their educations at local and affordable institutions. The Christie administration even intended to make cuts to an attractive incentive programs for successful students at New Jersey county colleges.  NJ STARS I and NJ STARS II are merit-based scholarships that are awarded to high achieving students who attend a New Jersey county college and then continue at a four-year college or university.  Further the Governor’s administration plans funding decreases to our state universities.

Christie would also like to implement a voucher system for students, by which students in poor school districts are given money to attend a private school.  Although this may appear to be a good plan, it just demonstrates that Christie acknowledges that the public education system is inefficient.  Further, it implies that the Governor does not have full confidence in the potential improvement of our state’s public education program. 

Although it appears that Christie’s plans for public education reform are well intended, in practice none of the plans will be particularly effective for improving the general state of the New Jersey education system.