Latest Percentage of Highly Effective Teachers in New Jersey Released: Results for Hudson County, New Jersey

Whether we are parents, taxpayers, policy makers, or educators, we all want highly effective teachers in our classrooms teaching our children. Earlier this year the New Jersey Department of Education released data on teacher and principal effectiveness. In July of 2015 NJPATCH posted the results (from highest to lowest) of high performing teachers in the State of New Jersey. The report was complied by an award winning journalist. This information was picked up by a blogger in Bayonne, NJ and many other journalists and policy people around New Jersey including NJ.COM. Results were also posted by Patch.com for Hoboken, NJ. 

Prior to 2013-14, New Jersey teachers were either rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory based on as little as one observation by an administrator. The evaluation system was revamped by TEACHNJ and now calls for at least three observations for new teachers, along with the consideration of student academic growth on local tests or quizzes and student improvement or decline on annual standardized tests.Teachers are classified as "highly effective" or "effective" if they are satisfactory and "partially effective" or "ineffective" if they are not. -NJ.COM

More information of the new staff evaluation system (TEACHNJ Act and N.J.S.A.18A:6-120) can be found at the New Jersey Department of Education website. It is worth noting that suppressed records are indicated by an (*). Records that have less than 10 subjects are called "suppressed" (e.g., if 9 or fewer teachers/staff received a rating of Ineffective, the record is suppressed).

Therefore wherever there is an (*) you can assume the number of teachers in that category is less than 10 or falls somewhere between 0 to 9 teachers. Giving the full benefit of a doubt, the chart below replaces every (*) in the Highly Effective category (High_EFF) with a (9) representing 9 possible teachers or the maximum number from the 0-9 range. There could be as little as no teachers (0) rated highly effective if there is an * in the category. As mentioned, 9 is the maximum possible suppressed number which warrants an (*).

What are the teacher evaluations based upon? Well, according to NJ.COM, 85% of the evaluation was based on observations of local administrators directly overseeing the teachers:

“Most teachers’ evaluations were based on the following: 85 percent on observations by administrators and 15 percent on student growth on local tests, quizzes or other projects. Only about 15 percent of teachers had their scores based 55 percent on observation, 15 percent on student progress on local tests and 30 percent on students’ annual improvement on state standardized tests.” -NJ.com 

To repeat--- 85% of the ratings for this teacher effectiveness scoring was assessed by school administrators where these teachers teach and not by student test scores. 

A number of individuals requested a compilation of Highly Effective Teacher percentages for districts in Hudson County, New Jersey. All data is from the New Jersey Department of Education and can be directly accessed by clicking HERE. 

Hudson County, New Jersey

INEFF Part_EFF EFF High_EFF TOTAL  % HighEF HARRISON TOWN * * 56 92 149 61.74% EAST NEWARK BORO * * 15 * 18 50.00% SECAUCUS TOWN * * 85 74 160 46.25% HUDSON COUNTY VOCATIONAL * * 148 63 211 29.86% WEST NEW YORK TOWN * * 389 160 553 28.93% GUTTENBERG TOWN * * 55 14 72 19.44% NORTH BERGEN TWP * * 461 103 567 18.17% UNION CITY * 11 566 86 663 12.97% KEARNY TOWN * * 386 42 429 9.79% WEEHAWKEN TWP * * 95 * 107 8.41% JERSEY CITY * * 1824 106 2043 5.19% HOBOKEN CITY * 11 157 * 177 5.08% BAYONNE CITY * * 657 14 679 2.06%
Data: http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/staff/ Legend: INEFF= Ineffective Teachers; Part_EFF= Partially Effective Teachers; EFF= Effective Teachers;
High_EFF= Highly Effective; Total= Total Number of Teachers in District; High EFF%= Percent of
Highly Effective Teachers
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