At First Anniversary, NJ's Teacher Tenure Law Faces Biggest Test

The state senator who wrote and shepherded through New Jersey’s new teacher tenure law remembers well the day a year ago when it was signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie -- including that it was an August scorcher.

With the law’s first anniversary this week, state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) said she also knows now that it remains an unfinished job.

“New Jersey should be very proud of what it accomplished,” Ruiz said yesterday. “But we can’t stop there. It is one small step, and there are other things we need to talk about, so many other things that are needed to ensure a child’s academic success.”

Ruiz’s Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act (TEACHNJ) has transformed teacher evaluation, instituting new requirements on how and when teachers are assessed and laying out a system of grades that can grant them tenure -- or potentially remove them. The law goes into full effect with the start of the school year next month. At that point, every district in the state is required to have in place a teacher evaluation system that will grade educators on a scale from “ineffective to “highly effective.”

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