BEWARE the Ed Reformers!

Today I received a flyer in the mail encouraging me to join an organization called Better Education for Kids, Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan organization that supports education reform around the country, specifically in New Jersey, my state. Their website is located at www.b4njkids.org.

Besides the obvious question, if New Jersey is #3 in the nation and sets an example for public education not only in the country, but also in the world, why would we need to completely reform the system, there are some questions I had about this organization that states "It's time to reject the narrow interests of the teacher's union," on the back of the flyer.

1.) Who are they?

The Executive Director for Better for Kids, Inc. is Derrell Bradford. The orginization's website posts this as his bio:

Derrell Bradford is the Executive Director of Better Education for Kids’ 501c4 efforts. Before joining B4K, he served as the Executive Director and Director of Communications for Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), New Jersey’s largest school choice advocacy group. He also led and co-led the research and legal efforts, respectively, for the organization. Derrell served on Governor Chris Christie’s Educator Effectiveness Task Force, which gave recommendations on designing a new, statewide evaluation system for teachers and leaders, and is a member of the State Department of Education’s Charter School Advisory Board. He is a signatory for the Education Equality Project, and was recently named to NBC’s “The Grio 100: History Makers in the Making.” Derrell also sits on the boards of Immaculate Conception (Montclair) and St. Anthony (Jersey City) Catholic high schools. Derrell appears frequently in print, radio, and on television to discuss and debate a wide range of education reform issues.

A native of Baltimore, MD, Derrell is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a B.A. in English and Creative Writing.


Note the boldfaced facts about Derrell: He worked for Governor Christie (non-partisan?), he is on the board of two CATHOLIC schools, and he only has a BA in English. So, he has no actual education background and is going to reform public schools while he is clearly interested in Catholic education. Conflict? You decide. There's more...

The Executive Director of the New Jersey subset of this organization is Mike Lilley:

Mike Lilley has a long history in public service and philanthropy. Mike graduated from Princeton University, where he majored at the Woodrow Wilson School and played varsity football. He later graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and then served ten years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer, attaining the rank of captain. After the Marine Corps, Mike worked in finance as a bond trader at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Mike’s family has a long history of public service. Mike grew up in Asia, where his father served as US ambassador to Taiwan, Korea and China, among other diplomatic assignments.

Mike has long been interested in public service. In addition to serving in the Marine Corps, Mike has been active in several veterans’ charities and student mentoring programs, and has had a longstanding interest in education, public policy and international affairs.

Besides the friendliness of Mike's using a nickname instead of his full first name, which is a cute tactic to get you to like him, what else is there to like about this guy running EDUCATION reform movements in New Jersey? He's a corporate finance lawyer and ex-Marine with "a longstanding interest in education." Just because he's INTERESTED he should run this movement? This is a true businessman who understands legalese. "Mike" wants public education to be run like a business. Fire those who don't work out, test every kid equally and judge them equally. One size fits all, right?

It doesn't end there.The flyer mentions "Rewarding Good Teachers with Merit Pay." B4NJKids defines merit pay being based on "performance evaluations, student test scores, teaching practice, and service in high-needs schools and subject areas." Besides the lack of information on how much each of these points is valued toward teacher pay -- re: student test scores -- what do some of these things mean? Who judges them? What is "teaching practice" and how is that going to be evaluated? Who determines a "high-need subject area"? And just because I work in an affluent area of New Jersey, I shouldn't be paid as much as a teacher who is just as good with all the same experience who works in a "high needs school"? That's fair? Okay, let's pay our MBAs more money if they go work for failing companies and see how they like it.

This is another attack on an education system that is NOT failing, but does need reform. It is an attack on teachers too. The flyer states: "Currently, underperforming teachers are protected by an outdated tenure system; only 17 of approximately 100,000 New Jersey teachers have been removed for ineffectiveness in the past decade."

True, there were probably more than 17 ineffective teachers in the past 10 years that should have been removed, but where did they get that number? Does it include teachers fired in their first three years before they got tenure? And the way this is phrased is an unparallel comparisson. It implies that there are 100,000 ineffective teachers out there, but that's the WHOLE number for the state, so it compares 17 released teachers for ineffectiveness to the whole body of teachers. You can't do that. How many ineffective teachers were kept in relation to those 17? That would be a fair comparison. These are skewed statistics, where they have them, with no basis in factual surveys of anything. There are no citations on their website to support any of their claims.

DO NOT SUPPORT Better4Kids in any state, particularly New Jersey. Their plans are not better for kids. They are better for corporations and big money makers around the country.