Montville Man Lobbies for School Administrators

Township resident and former Montville schools superintendent Dr. Richard G. Bozza was drawn to education by teachers and coaches who had a dramatic impact on his life.

So, despite politics, funding and other issues that often threaten to override students in the education equation, Bozza aspires to keep children at the forefront of every conversation, he said.

“I talk about that a lot,” said Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators in Trenton. “Every one of us has had a teacher who we’d describe as ‘demanding but supportive.’ Or who ‘had high expectations, but they cared about me.’ We don’t remember teachers because we achieved a high standardized test score.”

Bozza and his family have lived in Montville for 21 years. He first came to the township to serve as principal of Central School, which is now Lazar Middle School.

The biggest surprise of his career came when he was offered the opportunity to be the superintendent of New Jersey’s state school of the deaf at the Katzenbach Campus.

After four years there, he returned to Montville Township as the superintendent of schools, a position he held for 10 years before moving to another superintendent position in the state.

With a 41-year resume in education, Bozza is executive director of the school administrators group. The organization focuses on professional development for more than 1,000 superintendents, principals and other administrators who guide educational initiatives throughout New Jersey. NJASA provides services to all 21 counties in the state. The organization also lobbies on behalf of education.

“We lobby anyone who will listen about what we think are the interests of public education,” Bozza said.

Bozza’s job is to support New Jersey superintendents—or, as he likes to call them, CEOs, for chief education officers.  NJASA provides training and resources to help superintendents develop and maintain high-achieving school systems. And, according to Bozza, New Jersey has some of the best school systems in the country.

But he said that doesn't mean all districts need the same requirements or testing measures. Needs and strengths vary from one district to the next, he said.

In 2009, Bozza represented NJASA as part of Governor Chris Christie’s transition team. His role was to assess the state of education in New Jersey at that time, and to assist in identifying future issues.

Bullying, funding, measuring student and educator performance and the merits of merit pay, were some of the topics flagged.

“Today, they’re still on the horizon but on the current horizon," Bozza said.

With the launch of New Jersey’s new anti bullying law, Bozza has been busy speaking with reporters and educators about the requirements and the responsibilities school districts will assume under the new initiative.

“It’s a great law in terms of its intent,” Bozza said. “But we see some real problems in its implementation.”

While he agrees that schools play a role in the efforts to eradicate bullying, he sees some parents balking at the school trying to enforce bullying that originates in the home.

“One of the things that the law requires is a week of respect in October,” Bozza said. “Well, we need 52 weeks of respect, not just one.”

Bozza said the law cannot be effective without adults from the community, religious and political organizations, and parents stepping up.

Another issue that is more complicated than it looks on the surface is teacher performance, he said.

“How we evaluate school personnel and teachers—by looking at kids’ achievement—sounds reasonable when you say it fast,” Bozza said. But he said when you really look at it there are variables.

New Jersey is monitoring 11 pilot schools to determine how to assess teachers based on student performance. Bozza is encouraging the state to keep in mind that not all situations can be evaluated the same way. Team teaching and class size are just two variables that can affect the success of a lesson or a school year, he said.

The Governor’s Office has indicated that new guidelines for teacher evaluation may be ready as soon as next year.

Bozza agrees with Christie that changes are needed, but he cautions, “When we look at the bigger picture, in the long term we have to be very careful about these very short term, single-minded kind of goals that we have.”

Bozza said other countries have surpassed the U.S. in educational standards. One reason he feels the country has lost its edge is that states are taking “a very prescriptive approach” to education.

In Korea and Finland, the governments are investing in teachers and training.

In the New Jersey, many approaches are mandated, but support is not provided.

 “It’s like telling a doctor you want him to cure every disease in the world, but you’re not going to give him any training,” Bozza said.