BREAKING: Here Is Your New Education Commissioner
Laura Waters is managing editor of NJ Education Report where this report was originally published.
NJ Education Report has received confirmation from the New Jersey Department of Education and the Governor’s Office that the next Education Commissioner will be Kevin Dehmer. This Thursday, February 1st, Assistant Commissioner Christopher Huber will start serving as Acting Commissioner until Dehmer is on board.
Dehmer is currently Executive Director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Before that he was Assistant Commissioner and Chief Financial Officer of the DOE. Earlier in his career he headed numerous offices within DOE and helped design the state’s school funding formula in response to the Abbott v. Burke rulings that required the state to fund 31 low-income school districts at the same level as wealthy districts. In 2020, when then-Commissioner Lamont Repollet resigned, Gov. Phil Murphy appointed Dehmer Interim/Acting Commissioner of Education.
Dehmer was in the hot seat as schools reopened after COVID-19 school closures. For example, at a September 2020 Senate Budget Committee hearing, he made the mistake of using the notoriously inaccurate US News and World Report school and state rankings to boast that NJ had the best schools in the country, even while the DOE had decided to not bother collecting data on student learning loss. Senator Teresa Ruiz shot back,
“If we don’t have baseline data to show to us what is it that we need to do,” Ruiz responded, “we will be perpetuating a fraud of being No. 1 in the country. And that has got to stop.”
Dehmer holds a master’s degree in public policy and was an Eagleton Institute graduate fellow in politics and government.
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Dehmer needs to look into the Teacher Certification office. He needs to overhaul what will benefit its staff, that is, the staff that actually does the review process and adheres to the regulations, not those who tend to empty meetings on website design all day. The regulations are faulty and were redesigned by an arrogant few who do not know the evaluation process. The long-term director must be removed, as well as the examiner head. Transfer them to a unit where they might actually be of use. Ties with NJEA’s non-regionally-accredited satellite, NJCTL, must also be axed. Pay attention to Laura Waters’ recommendations to remedy teacher shortages. There’s so much that needs to be done. To start, meet with the certification evaluators individually, Mr. Dehmer, and you will be surprised by what you learn. Everything in the department is impacted by the Certification Office. Fix that and the rest will begin to fall into place.