By GAIL COLLINS

Let’s talk about talking pineapples.

Actually (spoiler alert!) I’m going to use the pineapple as a sneaky way to introduce the topic of privatization of public education. I was driven to this. Do you know how difficult it is to get anybody to read about “privatization of education?” It’s hell. A pineapple, on the other hand, is something everybody likes. It’s a symbol of hospitality. Its juice is said to remove warts. And you really cannot beat the talking-fruit angle.

This month, New York eighth graders took a standardized English test that included a story called “The Hare and the Pineapple,” in which you-know-what challenges a hare to a race. The forest animals suspect that since the pineapple can’t move, it must have some clever scheme to ensure victory, and they decide to root against the bunny. But when the race begins, the pineapple just sits there. The hare wins. Then the animals eat the pineapple. The end.

There were many complaints from the eighth graders, who had to answer questions like: “What would have happened if the animals had decided to cheer for the hare?” They were also supposed to decide whether the animals ate the pineapple because they were hungry, excited, annoyed or amused. (That part bothered me a lot. We’ve got a talking pineapple here, people. You don’t just go and devour it for having delusions of grandeur.)

Teachers, parents and education experts all chimed in. Nobody liked the talking pineapple questions. The Daily News, which broke the story, corralled “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings, who concluded that “the plot details are so oddly chosen that the story seems to have been written during a peyote trip.”

The state education commissioner, John King, announced that the questions would not count in the official test scores. There was no comment from the test author. That would be Pearson, the world’s largest for-profit education business, which has a $32 million five-year contract to produce New York standardized tests.

Now — finally — we have tumbled into my central point. We have turned school testing into a huge corporate profit center, led by Pearson, for whom $32 million is actually pretty small potatoes. Pearson has a five-year testing contract with Texas that’s costing the state taxpayers nearly half-a-billion dollars.

This is the part of education reform nobody told you about. You heard about accountability, and choice, and innovation. But when No Child Left Behind was passed 11 years ago, do you recall anybody mentioning that it would provide monster profits for the private business sector?

Me neither.

It’s not just the tests. No Child Left Behind has created a system of public-funded charter schools, a growing number of which are run by for-profit companies. Some of them are completely online, with kids getting their lessons at home via computer. The academic results can be abysmal, but on the plus side — definitely no classroom crowding issues.

Pearson is just one part of the picture, albeit a part about the size of Mount Rushmore. Its lobbyists include the guy who served as the top White House liaison with Congress on drafting the No Child law. It has its own nonprofit foundation that sends state education commissioners on free trips overseas to contemplate school reform.

An American child could go to a public school run by Pearson, studying from books produced by Pearson, while his or her progress is evaluated by Pearson standardized tests. The only public participant in the show would be the taxpayer.

If all else fails, the kid could always drop out and try to get a diploma via the good old G.E.D. The General Educational Development test program used to be operated by the nonprofit American Council on Education, but last year the Council and Pearson announced that they were going into a partnership to redevelop the G.E.D. — a nationally used near-monopoly — as a profit-making enterprise.

“We’re a capitalist system, but this is worrisome,” said New York Education Commissioner King.

The Obama administration has been trying to tackle the astronomical costs of 50 different sets of standardized tests by funding efforts by states to develop shared models — a process you will be stunned to hear is being denounced by conservatives like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas as “a federal takeover of public schools.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has also begun giving out waivers from the requirement that children in failing public schools be given after-school tutoring. Idea sounded great. Hardly helped the kids at all. But no for-profit tutoring company was left behind.

The pushback against privatization isn’t easy. We’re now in a world in which decisions about public education involve not just parents and children and teachers, but also big profits or losses for the private sector. Change the tests, or the textbooks, or the charters, or even the rules for teacher certification, and you change somebody’s bottom line.

It’s a tough world out there. Ask the talking pineapple.

By Jarrett Renshaw/Statehouse Bureau The Star-Ledger

More than one in three school administrators in New Jersey have failed to disclose the value of their unused sick and vacation time as required by a state law intended to make their compensation plans more transparent, a Star-Ledger analysis shows.

In 2007, lawmakers approved legislation calling for school districts to provide the state Department of Education with details each year on the salaries and benefit packages of administrators who earn at least $75,000. The department is then expected to post the information on its website under the heading “user-friendly” budgets.

But that does not always happen.

A Star-Ledger review of the most recent state data found that only 1,305 of 3,447 school administrators statewide — or 38 percent — disclosed the price tag of their accrued time, and even less provided the required details on how the payout is calculated.

Despite the lack of participation, the cost of the reported accrued time still amounts to $25.2 million, the data show.

“It’s defeating the purpose of the law,” said Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester), a co-sponsor of the legislation. “The public deserves to know how much they are paying, and we need to find why that’s not happening.”

Some of the districts that did not disclose any financial information on unused sick and vacation time are among the state’s largest, including Camden, Atlantic City and Paterson as well as suburban districts like South Brunswick.

Justin Barra, a spokesman for the Department of Education, pointed a finger at the school districts, which he said had failed to provide the required information. Barra declined to say why the department permitted the districts to skirt the requirement or provide any remedies.

“Those districts not reporting the information must do so,” he said. “We will continue to improve in our role of enforcing this disclosure requirement on behalf of local districts.”

The requirements were put in place following a scathing state Commission of Investigation report that said school administrators were being showered with lucrative perks with little public scrutiny. Under the 2007 guidelines, districts are required to disclose the value of their administrators unused sick and vacation time, how it’s calculated and other items like clothing and phone allowances.

Lawmakers froze the administrative sick day payouts at 2007 levels and capped such payouts for all new administrators at $15,000.

In the meantime, Gov. Chris Christie and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) are said to be nearing an agreement to help rein in the perk for all local public employees and not just school administrators.

One sponsor of the 2007 disclosure law was state Sen. Brian Stack (D-Hudson), who is also mayor of Union City. His school district was among those that failed to report the cost of the administrators’ unused time.

“It was an oversight,” the Union City school superintendent, Stanley Sanger, said this week. “We are updating our information on our website as we speak.”

If Sanger stepped down today, he would be owed $157,650 for his unused time, according to figures provided by the district at The Star-Ledger’s request, and Anthony Dragona, the district’s business administrator, would get $137,091.

State Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson) is an assistant school superintendent in North Bergen and supported the disclosure law, but his district has also failed to say how much he and other administrators were owed last year. If it had, the information would have shown Sacco was owed $331,970 for his unused time.

Last week, Sacco agreed to give up nearly $190,000 of his payout after the state said he was not entitled to all the money he was claiming. The state inserted language into his 2011 contract making it appear he was entitled to a huge bump, but officials later said that in 2007 lawmakers had frozen the payouts of Sacco and other administrators.

Daniel Gerardi, superintendent of the Caldwell-West Caldwell School District, said if a taxpayer wants to know how much he will be paid for his unused sick and vacation time, the answer is just clicks away on the Department of Education website.

As of last year, Gerardi was owed $75,203, records show, and the district’s business administrator, Ronald Skopak, can expect $156,746.

“These are public records,” Gerardi said, “and taxpayers deserve to know the costs.”

Revamped formula for N.J. graduation rates
District officials had mixed reactions to the release of graduation rates for each New Jersey district and public high school Tuesday. The figures use a revamped formula that has clipped back previously reported rates.

Some officials said the new rates just underscore additional work that needs to be done in their districts. Others said more work needs to be done on the new formula, required by the federal government.

While announcing plans Monday for new high school state assessments, Gov. Chris Christie had announced that the statewide graduation rate under the new system is 83 percent, rather than the nearly 95 percent that had been cited under the old formula.

The new formula differs in that it requires schools to document that individual ninth-graders who don’t graduate with their class transferred to another school, state or country or died, rather than just generally report the number of students who drop out. Because the formula has changed, comparisons to past years aren’t possible.

Freehold Regional High School District Superintendent Charles Sampson said the new graduation rates “provide baseline data,” but “the formula does not account for those students who do not exit our system until the age of 21.” He did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how many students the district has at that age. The combined rate at the district’s six schools is 95.18 percent.

“I hope that a more effective manner will be utilized to capture these students as well, as our data is not wholly reflective of the students we serve,” Sampson said. He said the Department of Education has indicated it is working on this concern.

Graduation rates in New Jersey’s cities generally lag the state average by even larger margins now. Rates for 2011 include 61 percent in Newark, less than 60 percent in Asbury Park, 59 percent in New Brunswick and 57 percent in Camden.

Asbury Park’s graduation rate for the Class of 2010 had been calculated at 85 percent, using the old methodology. Newark’s was nearly 88 percent.

Asbury Park Superintendent of Schools Denise Lowe said that among other efforts to help students make it to graduation and beyond, she is working on developing a campaign to bring dropout students back to school.

She said students that might have dropped out in years past “may now have a chance, with things like credit recovery classes and our free GED course offered at our Parent Center.”

“We truly want this community to be successful and more importantly be ready for everything that comes after high school,” Lowe added.

Not all districts saw their recalculated graduation rates drop. Lakewood, for instance, which had been the lowest in Ocean County at 37.6 percent in 2010, now finds itself at 70.11 percent under the new system. The lower rate was largely due to a severe multiyear miscalculation on the number of dropouts.

Under Superintendent Lydia Silva, the district brought in new school leaders to help struggling students graduate by using online learning classes to bring them up to speed. The high school has new technology from a federal School Improvement Grant, and there is intensive ongoing professional development for the staff.

Carl Fink, president of the Lakewood board, said there are a lot of plans to integrate the senior communities with students in tutoring positions. Vocational classes will be added for students who choose a career outside the college path, Fink said.

“It is just going to keep getting better and better,” Fink said.

Manasquan Superintendent Geraldine Margin believes the new plan for tracking high school students from ninth grade to graduation will be a help to their schools. Margin said it will reduce the amount of students who are “unaccounted” for, thus possibly improving graduation rates for other districts as well.

Margin said Manasquan’s graduation rate is at 91.89 percent, above the average statewide graduation rate of 83 percent, which was calculated with the new “four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.”

“Under the new formula we will take the number of graduates in a class and divide by the number of students that came in with that class their freshman year. With NJ SMART tracking students, we will be able to track the students who transferred out of the district during that time period, so it won’t count against our graduation rate,” Margin said.

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today said the days of making it easier for public employees to serve as lawmakers in Trenton should come to an end.

He said if police officers, teachers and other public employees want the responsibilities — and salary — that come with being a lawmaker, they should be required to take days off from their full-time jobs when coming to Trenton for votes and committee meetings.

“They should take time when they come down and serve,” Christie said during a news conference in Plainsboro. “People in the private sector are not getting that benefit, so I don’t know why people in the public sector should.”

The comments come a day after a Star-Ledger report showed there are 15 lawmakers — 14 Democrats and one Republican — who have accrued about $850,000 worth of unused sick and vacation time that they could turn into cash.

Topping the list of lawmakers is State Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson), whose 445 unused sick days at his job as assistant school superintendent at the North Bergen School District are worth $331,970, records show.

Sacco, who is also mayor of North Bergen, has been coming to Trenton for votes and committee sessions for two decades, but has never taken a sick or vacation day when making the trip. That’s because a state law intended to expand participation in Trenton says he doesn’t have to.

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex), who works as an Essex County administrator, said the law is vital to ensure a diversity of opinion in Trenton.

“To even suggest that one’s occupation, or where he or she earns a living, should impede who can serve smacks of elitism,” Oliver said in a written statement. “That is why the framers of the New Jersey State constitution made provision to establish a part-time Legislature — so that citizens could elect people to represent them who hail from all walks of life. Not just those who are independently wealthy, hail from corporate America or are self-employed, but also teachers, police, firefighters, health care practicioners, social workers, labor representatives.”

County records show Oliver has only officially missed work three times this year. She currently has accrued more than $8,000 worth of unused time, records show.

Christie declined to comment directly on Sacco, choosing instead to renew his calls for eliminating the perk.

“It’s a broken system,” said Christie. “People should not be paid for not being sick. The reward should be not being sick.”

Republican and Demcratic lawmakers appeared to move closer today to compromise bill that would freeze the current level of existing payouts while eliminating payouts for new employees.

Christie vetoed a Democrat bill last year that would have frozen the accrued time of existing employees and capped payouts for all employees who have compiled $15,000 worth of time.

Christie said it didn’t go far enough, and he wanted to trim the size of future payouts by forcing employees to draw down their banked time first when taking a vacation or sick days. Democrats said Christie’s attempt to take away public employees’ accrued time is illegal and would be immediately challenged in court.

State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) said Senate Republicans will submit a bill that mirrors one submitted by Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucucester) earlier this year that would freeze current levels but not force current employees to tap into their current time. “We need to close this indefensible loophole now,” Kyrillos said.

Chris Donnelly, a spokesman for Sweeney, said Kyrillos ignores the fact that he supported the Democratic bill Christie vetoed last year. “As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Senate President is quite flattered,” Donnelly said.

The Christie administration’s slow pace with court-ordered school construction and repairs is now heading to court, this time with a twist on who actually is being sued.

The Education Law Center, the Newark-based advocacy group representing school children under the Abbott v. Burke litigation, yesterday announced it had filed a lawsuit over what it said was the administration’s failure to move on scores of so-called “emergent projects” in the state’s poorest districts.

They include more than 100 roof repairs, and dozens of air conditioning and heating system replacements, and a host of fire safety upgrades. Newark alone has more than 100 projects in need, the lawsuit reads. Trenton has 99 and Camden another 95.

The lawsuit cited more than 60 repair needs that potentially imperil students’ health and safety.

And while the usual target of complaints has been the long beleaguered Schools Development Authority, which oversees this work, the twist is the lawsuit is against the state Department of Education. The SDA oversees and manages the eventual work, but it is the department that determines and approves the projects, the key point in the suit.

“The law clearly requires the state to address hazardous school conditions, and almost nothing has been done in the last two years,” said Greg Little, the lawyer working on behalf of the ELC in the case.

“Every school day thousands of children, teachers and other staff using … school buildings where these emergent conditions exist face an imminent threat to their health and safety.”

As required, the complaint was filed with the head of the agency being challenged, acting education commissioner Chris Cerf, and is almost surely to be referred to an administrative law judge. Either way, the lawsuit is likely to take many months to wind its way through the process and could prove as much a political tactic as a legal one to put pressure on the state

The lawsuit does not speak to the long delays in restarting the long list of new construction projects being managed by the state and the SDA, arguably an even bigger point of contention with districts.

A spokesman for Cerf said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

A spokeswoman for the Schools Development Authority also would not comment, even though the SDA is technically not a defendant, but she cited the SDA’s announcement last month that it would move on 76 of the projects in 21 districts.

“We are now positioned to address the most critical needs of our districts and make sure our school facilities are safe learning environments for all students,” said Marc Larkins, the chief executive of the SDA, in making that announcement.

However, the complaint from ELC contends that while the SDA made that announcement in March, no final determination or timelines have yet to be set for any of the projects. It detailed a string of correspondences between the state and the districts, but still no go-aheads on the projects.

“While the DOE issued so-called ‘status determination’ letters to districts in March — identifying 76 of approximately 760 projects submitted as ‘potential’ emergent projects — the Department did not issue any final decision on the projects and has provided no timeline for when those decisions will be made and, more importantly, when these unsafe and dangerous conditions will be addressed,” read the ELC’s announcement yesterday.

The lawsuit contends that the department is in violation of the Abbott v. Burke school rulings that ordered the work in the first place, as well as statute and its own regulations.

The cited health and safety projects involve a slew of needs, the lawsuit said, including leaks and ensuing mold, faulty air-conditioning and its impact on students with asthma, and more than a dozen cases of inoperable or nonexistent fire safety measures.

Whether projects were “emergency” needs, versus “emergent” ones, has been part of the dispute between districts and the state.

The SDA has maintained the districts must act on any projects imperiling students’ health and safety. Some advocates have said the state has stalled so long on projects that emergent needs have become emergency ones.

A handful of districts are expected to join this lawsuit, said their lawyer, Richard Shapiro, yesterday, but they had yet to do so.

HIGHLAND PARK — Marilyn Valentine of Franklin Township was one of the few African-Americans in the audience the other night at Highland Park’s Bartle School. She came to hear a panel discussion about charter schools. Much of the discussion was critical of state policies concerning the privately managed but publicly-funded alternatives.

Valentine, who raised two children into successful adulthood, said she understood the criticisms but pointed out that many parents who looked like her despaired of traditional public schools. “Where are the solutions?” she asked.

If charter and other privatized schools aren’t the solution—and she didn’t say they were—then what are parents to do? “You’re telling the people there is nothing for you.’’

Valentine’s complaint reflects what Gov. Chris Christie and other proponents of privatizing public education—especially in the cities—have been saying. Christie insists a child’s education should not depend on a zip code.

Her questions raised the most fundamental issue in public education: What is the responsibility of the state to the education of its children. What should it do in response to continued failure?

The debate about privatization—about charters and vouchers and increased aid to private schools—really is a consequence of the failure of what was once thought to be the ultimate school reform: The state takeover of failing schools.

One panelist, Michelle Fine of Montclair, an author and professor at City University of New York, called privatization “just an exit ramp for some people.’’ Because charters and other forms of privatization don’t take in all children, she said, they “cannot be considered a systematic, equitable strategy’’ for reform. Just a way to help some children.

Julia Sass Rubin of Princeton, a Rutgers professor and spokeswoman for Save Our Schools, a pro-public school group, said the real solution was an “affordable housing strategy.’’

Valentine didn’t disagree and, so, there it was on the table, this unwelcome idea—real school reform means more than just tinkering with schools. When the state took over failing schools in Jersey City, Paterson, and Newark, it was taking a logical step, but the effort was doomed because it didn’t face the real problem: Inequality. Economic, social, and racial inequality.

So, after the state didn’t succeed, then what? The Christie administration took what Fine called “the exit ramp” strategy. Creating privatized schools for some children, while leaving traditional schools with the most difficult kids and decreasing resources. As some of the governor’s supporters have argued, that, at least, helps some children in failing districts.

But the state constitution applies to all children. So what is the state supposed to do? What happens when the ultimate state-imposed school reform— takeover—itself fails?

The answer is “Whatever it takes.’’ New Jersey has to do whatever it takes. And those words just happen to be the informal slogan of a rising educational powerhouse, the nation of Finland.

The Nordic country has emerged as the most successful nation over the last decade in international tests of reading, mathematics, and science. Published reports quote Finnish educators saying they are free to do “whatever it takes” to ensure all children learn—and, yes, Finland, does have poor children and immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans.

So what does it take? Recent accounts of Finnish schooling in the “Smithsonian” magazine and “Atlantic” report teachers are selected from the nation’s brightest college graduates. They must earn a master’s degree (tuition is free). Well paid and treated with respect, They develop their own assessments and teaching strategies. Teachers have autonomy.

Finland has virtually no private schools—all schools are publicly funded and follow the same national curriculum, one that requires fluency in three languages. It has no standardized testing program, except a national high school exam to determine future placement.

But there’s more—far more. An account in last December’s “The Atlantic” quotes Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish education official, telling American educators the reason for its success was not the pursuit of “excellence but equity.’’ Cooperation, he said, was valued over competition.

All Finland’s school children get free meals in their schools. Free health care. Their parents receive three years’ leave, subsidized day-care—but never mind that, children themselves are directly subsidized by Finland.

Finnish school children—including the Iraqis, Somalis, and Kosovars among them—not only receive equal educational opportunity, they also are not allowed to sink into isolating poverty.

How un-American. How, well, socialist. How effective.

But, no worries. It can’t happen here. Despite the constitution, despite our professed love for, and desire to educate, all our children, New Jersey—this nation—would never do whatever it takes to ensure educational equity for all children.

Christie talks to Dems about proposals
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — Now in his second year of trying to push changes to public education through the Legislature, Gov. Chris Christie said Monday those plans have a better chance if an agreement over income-tax cuts can be reached relatively quickly.

Christie said he’s been talking with Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver about tenure, merit pay, charter schools and the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would give tax credits to businesses that donate to programs providing school vouchers to poor children.

The governor said he doesn’t have commitments about what will pass — but that he wants to avoid having the debate over income-tax cuts drag into June and distract attention from other priorities.

“How much we get done is going to be a product, I think, of how good we are at some of the other things we’ve talked about. How quickly do we come to an agreement on tax cuts and the income tax? How quickly do we come to an agreement on the budget?” Christie said, after a visit to Bordentown Regional High School, where he touted the school aid proposed in his budget plan.

“If we’re able to get those things squared away, that leaves open space for us to do the education reform,” he said. “If those things tend to dominate every day between now and the end of June, it gives you less space for it.”

Christie has proposed a 10 percent cut for all income tax brackets. Democrats have proposed an income-tax credit that would offset a portion of property taxes; Sweeney has proposed a 10 percent credit, while Assembly Democrats say they want a 20 percent credit.

Both plans would be phased in over several years.

Christie’s plan would benefit all taxpayers, with wealthy households getting larger benefits because their rates and tax bills are higher under the state’s progressive tax structure. Households with incomes over $250,000 aren’t eligible for the Democrats’ proposed credit.

Christie said he learned last year, when the Legislature approved landmark changes to pensions and health benefits but took until late June, that there shouldn’t be too many big priorities before lawmakers at the same time.

“The emotion and energy that was spent on that fight really precluded us from doing almost anything, including negotiating the budget,” he said.

Democrats approved a budget last June that wasn’t negotiated with Christie, who then erased $913 million from it through line-items vetoes.

Having taught in public school for 40 years, I feel obligated to speak out in reference to the Feb. 12 editorial, “Move ahead on tenure reform.”

This proposed bill gives principals too much power. Principals are often chosen on political prowess. Many harass teachers they don’t like personally and coddle favorites, regardless of the quality of the teacher’s performance. Teacher involvement must be part of the evaluation process.

Raises are based upon length of service and advanced degrees, with most waiting 12 to 20 years before reaching maximum pay. A pay scale similar to police or the bill’s proposed four-step performance ladder should be an essential part of this bill.

Giving bonuses for troubled schools within a district is admirable. However, many boards assign unfavorable teachers to these troubled schools as punishment, thus compounding educational problems.

The original purpose for tenure is still true today. As a negotiator, I was always confronted with getting rid of bad teachers. However, these “bad teachers” never had names. Board members used this as a tactic of admonishment during negotiations.

Board members put pressure on principals so their own children are treated more favorably. A teacher issuing lower grades to a board member’s child invariably receives a reprimand from the principal.

Certainly, tenure should be reformed. However, it should proceed without the demeaning class warfare being waged by Gov. Chris Christie.

Instead of condemning our classroom teachers, we should involve them in the education process and give them ownership in the creation of this bill.

Ron Vanadia

Barnegat

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today will unveil a state budget that is expected to show how he intends to pay the first installment of his proposed income tax cut and how much state aid public schools will get.

The Republican governor will deliver an annual budget speech that kicks off what could be another contentious debate with the Democrat-dominated state Legislature. Last year, Christie sliced about $900 million in programs endorsed by Democrats in finishing a $29.7 billion spending plan.

Mayors, school administrators and residents are hoping the governor will restore some of the cuts he made during the recession. At the same time, Christie will have to chip in far more to the public employee pension system as a result of a reform bill he signed last year. Christie’s office refused to disclose details of the budget in advance of the speech.

Here are several things to look out for:

• Schools: Local school districts have felt the biggest brunt of Christie’s previous belt-tightening. He restored some last year, and most expect him to increase state aid. But the governor may also have something bigger in mind. For months, the Christie administration has signaled it wants to overhaul the current funding formula and perhaps send the issue back to a state Supreme Court that will likely include three of his appointments.

• Property Tax Relief: While his property tax caps helped keep the growth of local taxes to an average 2.4 percent last year, residents have seen a steep increase in the amount they actually pay. That’s because he slashed property tax rebate checks from their 2009 levels to balance the budget. He has slowly restored some of the cuts, but the current average rebate is still less than half the average $1,037 residents saw in 2009. The relief is funded through income tax revenue, which is on the upswing.

• Income Tax Cut: Christie announced a 10 percent income tax cut in January, and today is expected to show how he plans to pay for the first installment. If approved by lawmakers, the cut will be phased in over three years, starting on Jan. 1 of 2013. It would cost about $150 million in the upcoming budget and about $1.3 billion by 2016, according to the Office of Legislative Services. A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released this morning shows 52 percent of registered voters support the income tax cut plan, but three-quarters would prefer to see a property tax cut come first.

• The Economy: While revenues from key economic indicators like income and sales taxes are growing — up 3 percent — they are still falling short of the administration’s conservative projections. If revenue continues to fall short, it will make it tougher for Christie to spend more on things like property tax relief and school aid.

• Pension: Christie will have to find a way to make a $1.06 billion payment into the state’s troubled pension system. While it represents one of the largest payments in years, it is still well short of the $3.74 billion payment that actuaries say is necessary. The lack of a full payment undermines the boost the system saw from last year’s health and pension overhaul.

TRENTON — New Jersey’s top education official said Tuesday there is much he likes about a Democratic-sponsored teacher tenure reform bill, although he stopped short of endorsing the measure.

Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf said he is glad the bill, if enacted into law, would end tenure as lifetime job security, and require that teacher ratings play a significant role in determining who would be let go during layoffs.

But Cerf acknowledged that the bill does not contain provisions for merit pay, long advocated by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration. Instead, Cerf said, he hopes merit pay will be allowed by the Legislature and then eventually become embedded in teacher contracts through the local negotiation process.

Cerf made the comments during a meeting with the Asbury Park Press editorial board, one day after state Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, introduced what, if approved, would be landmark teacher tenure legislation for New Jersey, although about half of the states have enacted some form of tenure reform.

Ruiz has been meeting with various interest groups, including the state’s largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, for about a year. Ruiz has been praised by Christie, a Republican, and Cerf reiterated that praise on Tuesday.

“Let’s give a lot of credit to Sen. Ruiz. I’m a Democrat, this is a hard issue for Democrats to carry,” Cerf said. “She is carrying it ably, thoughtfully and well.”

That the bill would create a mechanism for teachers to lose tenure protections if they are found to be ineffective is “a big deal,” Cerf said.

Regarding layoffs, Cerf said it is illegal for a school board to keep teachers based on their ability, and must instead lay off according to seniority. He said changing that law — called “last in, first out” — will be a huge cultural shift within local education.

“The system is decrepit and it’s not working,” Cerf said.

Cerf said he prefers what he termed “differential pay” as a separate measure passed by the Legislature.

Cerf noted that teachers currently get pay raises only based on “steps and lanes” in contracts — steps for longevity and lanes for additional education beyond a bachelor’s degree.

But research shows that teachers do not necessarily get better over time or with advanced degrees, Cerf said.

“We uniquely do reward teachers, by law, for two considerations that are relatively unlinked” to student performance, he said.

School districts should be able to offer different pay to teachers for a variety of reasons, Cerf said.

“If I want to pay more money to a teacher to work in a high-challenge school, I ought to be able to do that,” Cerf said. “If … a great teacher has been recruited for another school district, (the district) ought to be able to pay a retention bonus.

“Let everything else work out at the bargaining table. If they want to do performance bonuses … I just want this profession to have the opportunity to use compensation as a management tool,” Cerf added.

Cerf also reiterated his longstanding opposition to allowing voters in a school district to decide whether or not to approve a charter school, even though a bill that would require just that passed an Assembly committee last week.

“I’ve never met the situation where monopolists, given the chance to vote for competition would do that, ever,” Cerf said. “The people who tend to be good at organizing people to vote would be against mucking around with the current system.”

The Ruiz tenure bill, which contains provisions that have also been proposed by Christie and Cerf, would:

Require teachers to be classified in one of four categories after their annual evaluation: highly effective, effective, partially ineffective and ineffective.

Allow tenure to be revoked for teachers and assistant principals rated in the bottom two categories if they did not improve the following year.

Force teachers deemed fully or partially ineffective to face layoffs, even if they have seniority, a key element demanded by education reform advocates. But school district needs would be the first criteria in determining whom to let go.

The bill would also affect other personnel areas. For example, principals will have final say over whether a teacher is hired for or transferred to their school.

Tenured teachers who are fired for cause would face an expedited appeal timeline, with the final determination to be made by an administrative law judge.

NEWARK — In an historic reshuffling of the state’s largest school system, Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson Friday will announce a series of districtwide reforms that include closing seven failing schools and increasing charter school accountability.

The measures, which also call for an expansion of Newark’s elite magnet school system, are by far the most far-reaching — and potentially controversial — initiatives of Anderson’s eight-month tenure.

“It’s our responsibility to put kids in schools that put them on a pathway to college,” Anderson said, adding that the reforms will foster diversity among students with different socioeconomic backgrounds and levels of achievement.

“We can’t become a city where struggling students are isolated in some schools,” she said.

According to a list obtained by The Star-Ledger and corroborated by three district officials, the schools that will close are: Dayton Street, Martin Luther King, 18th Avenue, Miller Street and Burnet Street elementary schools, and the ninth grade academies at Barringer and West Side high schools.

Anderson would not confirm which schools are closing, but said the facilities were targeted, in part, because of declining enrollment and poor performance.

Except for Miller Street Elementary School, the others posted failing grades for most students on math and language tests, according to statewide results released Wednesday. At Martin Luther King, only 10 percent of seventh graders achieved minimum language proficiency on the statewide tests.

Anderson admitted the school closings will be controversial.

“I understand that schools are first community institutions,” she said. “If you went there, if your grandfather went there, you have an emotional tie to it.”

School board members and principals from the schools slated for closure were briefed on the plan Thursday.

Beginning in September, students from those schools will be “co-located” to other buildings. It was unclear what will happen to teachers and staff.

The closings come almost one year after a proposal to consolidate city schools sparked a major outcry and divided community members.

At least one city leader has already expressed concern with the reforms.

South Ward Councilman and Central High School Principal Ras Baraka said any school closing will carry unforeseen consequences.

“The gang lines, kids moving one place to another, it’s always an issue in Newark,” he said. “I’m sure that they thought this through downtown. The question is have they thought this through in the neighborhoods.”

Baraka has repeatedly called on the state to relinquish control of the district, which it has held since 1995.

In addition to the school closings, Anderson’s initiatives call for increased accountability among Newark’s charter schools. She said she wants those schools to enroll more special needs students and do a better job sharing achievement data with the district.

Anderson also wants to expand access to the city’s exclusive magnet schools because, she said, those schools too often admit only the highest performers. Magnet schools typically require an application process and tend to accept only the best students.

“In general, we need a better distribution of kids in schools across Newark,” Anderson said. “That goes for existing schools, magnet schools and charter schools.”

Anderson will formally announce the reforms this afternoon at Rutgers-Newark. Meetings will be held throughout the city with parents and community leaders to further explain the process and solicit input.

“We want to hear feedback,” she said, adding that the proposals emerged from a plan put forth two years ago by former superintendent Clifford Janey — drafted with exhaustive community input.

Online Database by Caspio





Click here to load this Caspio Online Database.

TRENTON — New Jersey’s public school students racked up slightly higher test scores in most grades in the 2010-11 school year, despite Gov. Chris Christie’s cutting about $1 billion in state aid to schools that year, according to standardized test results released today by the state Board of Education.

Students posted slightly higher test stores in math and language arts in most grades, from 3 through 8, and in high school. In science, however, a subject in which students are tested only in fourth and eighth grades, scores dropped.

Many schools experienced cuts in staff and other areas in 2010-11, due to the steep drop in state aid. But results of the NJASK tests, given in grade school, and the High School Proficiency Assessment showed most weathered the storm.

“The year that generated that cut, actually turned out to be a year where we had decent student (achievement),” said Acting Commissioner Christopher Cerf, cautioning “I don’t want to leave you with the impression that means we can cut more. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Christie, in fact, returned some of the money to schools the following year.

The state each year releases data from tests taken the previous spring, as a snapshot of how New Jersey’s students are learning. In high school, scores showed steady progress up. The percentage of students passing language arts rose from 94.3 in 2010 to 96.1 percent in 2011, and the math passing rate went from 82.8 to 83.6. A new high school biology test also showed improvement.

The scores are for students in the “general population,” and do not include special education students or those with limited English proficiency.

In the younger grades, most improved or held steady. Fourth-graders’ passing rate went from 82.5 percent, to 84.4 percent in math; and from 66.9 to 70.0 percent in language arts — bouncing back up after a drop there, the previous year.

Eighth-graders rose in math, from 77.4 to 80.4 percent proficient. In language arts, eighth-graders fell slightly, from 90.6 percent to 90.1 percent.

Science was the spoiler in each of those grade levels. The eighth-grade passing rate fell from 89.8 to 88.4 percent in science, and the fourth grade proficiency rate dropped from 96.0 to 93.8. Cerf pointed out that in science, the scores were very high to begin with, however.

Cerf said despite the overall positive year, the state needs to do more. The achievement gap, between poor and wealthier students, or between students of different minority groups, remains “extremely large,” he said. Numerous reform efforts are under way to address it.

“In some cases it is expanding and in some cases narrowing, but in all cases, it remains large,” Cerf said. “”We are not fulfilling the basic purpose of public education.”

TEWKSBURY TWP. – Think your property taxes are too high? State Sen. Mike Doherty, R-Hunterdon, says he has a solution.

As part of a tour that has taken him to municipalities throughout the state, Sen. Doherty came to Tewksbury Tuesday, Jan. 17 to pitch his controversial Fair School Funding Plan (FSF), legislation he maintains would increase school funding and lower property taxes for 85 percent of the state.

How? Currently, state education aid is calculated via a formula approved under former Gov. Jon Corzine as part of his School Funding Reform Act. The formula calculates aid per student by several designations, including whether a student receives free or reduced school lunches or speaks another language at home.

Sen. Doherty’s proposal would do away with the formula altogether, and instead give each New Jersey student equal state funding, at $7,481 per child. The legislation would increase aid to suburban and rural districts while drastically reducing funds currently reserved for urban schools in so-called Abbott districts, including Newark, Camden and Asbury Park.

Under existing regulations, “It’s a very unequal distribution,” said the senator Tuesday. By his calculations, using figures he said came from the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Education and the Office of Legislative Services, the average Tewksbury resident contributes 14 times as much to the income tax fund as the average resident in urban Asbury Park, while Asbury Park receives 29 times more in state education aid.

Under Doherty’s plan, every town in Hunterdon County would receive an increase in state education funding, $130 million in total, that could then be used towards lowering income taxes.

In northern Hunterdon, he said Califon would receive an additional $884,565 in aid; Clinton an additional $1,209,546; Clinton Township $10,547,299; High Bridge $1,277,519; Lebanon $702,906; Lebanon Township $3,537,368, Readington Township $13,665,423; Tewksbury Township $5,131,403; and the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional School District $16,457,452.

Asbury Park, meanwhile, which the senator said currently receives $57,632,816 in state education funding for 2,316 students, would lose $40,306,820 in aid.

“I don’t think this is heartless. I think this is pretty fair,” said the senator. “Every student is treated equally.”

Doherty also railed against the State Supreme Court saying that it has interfered in education funding decisions that New Jersey’s constitution outlines as the legislature’s domain.

“It has been hijacked by the Supreme Court,” he said. “I think the constitution right now gives the power to the Legislature. We just have to take it back.”

Notwithstanding, the FSF plan also includes a constitutional amendment that Doherty said in his presentation “would specify a method of providing for the maintenance and support of public schools,” though he later acknowledged that the amendment might not be necessary.

Local Reaction

Tewksbury Mayor Dana Desiderio, who attended the meeting along with several other municipal and state officials, said she stands behind the senator’s plan.

“The current School Funding Reform Act is not only unfair to our students who receive far less per capita than the majority of other municipalities in our state but is unfair to our residents who pay an unfair percentage of the costs,” she said following the meeting.

Desiderio added, “The taxes assessed on Tewksbury residents are excessive. The result is catastrophic and the impact on property values is negative.”

Others, however, are not as supportive of the plan.

“It seems to be an overreaction,” said Nicholas Nacamuli, vice president of the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School Board of Education and a Tewksbury resident, who also attended Doherty’s presentation.

Nacamuli agreed that the current system “does seem very unfair,” but instead proposed a modification that would make the funding distribution more equitable. “The formula could be redone in a way that keeps more funds being sent to the districts that need it,” he said.

Following Doherty’s presentation, Assemblyman Erik Peterson, R-Hunterdon, who is also backing the plan, remarked, “This isn’t about rich versus poor. This is about educating kids.

“All our kids are the same,” he said. “They all deserve an equal opportunity.”

Officials pointed out that a public school student in Newark currently has a 23 percent chance of graduating high school, while almost all of Hunterdon County’s students go on to higher education.

Doherty cited corruption and misappropriation of funds as a primary factor behind the failures in many of the state’s urban public schools.

Current regulation “is supporting a system that’s failing,” he said.

When questioned, the senator suggested that urban students should be given the option of attending parochial or experimental charter schools at what he maintained would be a lower cost to the state, rather than sending those tens of thousands of students to faltering public schools.

Chance For Success

Actually getting the FSF plan passed in a Democratically-controlled state Legislature will prove a significant challenge, which is why the senator has been pushing his proposal at town-hall style meetings throughout New Jersey since introducing the plan in May.

He said he wants to encourage suburban and rural residents to talk to their representatives in support of the legislation.

“I think that people are going to have to demand change,” he said. “We can’t maintain the status quo.”

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie said he can institute an across-the-board 10 percent income tax cut and still increase state aid to education.

As part of a day-long victory lap Wednesday to promote the ideas unveiled one day earlier in his State of the State address, the Republican governor told a town hall audience in Vorhees he would phase-in the cut over three years at a cost of $300 million per year.

“The fact is there’s a lot of waste in government to be ferreted out over time,” he told hundreds of people in the atrium of a shopping mall, some perched over a balcony to get a good look. “I would tell you we’ll be able to do that not only without cutting aid to education but with increasing aid to education.”

The promise is a direct reaction to Democrats in control the Legislature who pounced on Christie’s income tax plan, calling it rhetoric aimed at boosting the governor’s national profile. They labeled it a gift to the wealthy that would decimate revenues so much that schools would suffer.

“Don’t let the Democrats who are opposing this fool you into thinking you have to make a choice between the two,” he said.

Christie, who said more details about how he’ll slash state spending would come in his Feb. 21 budget address, took his message of responsibly reducing the size of government around the state and over the airwaves. The whirlwind day started at 7 a.m. with an interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” followed by an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

As soon as the hour-and-a-half-long town hall ended, he held three quick-fire radio interviews before heading to the New Jersey Agricultural Convention in Atlantic City Wednesday night. He’s got interviews lined up today on CBS and Fox.

 Asked on WNYC whether he would sign the same sex marriage bill Democrats have made a priority of the new session, Christie said he remains unconvinced the Legislature can muster the votes to deliver a bill to his desk.

“This type of societal change is something we need to do very deliberately and have as much public input as we possibly can before people decide whether we can to overturn hundreds of years of social mores and traditions,” he said.

Christie said he would not “prejudge” the measure, and signaled he’d be open to strengthening the current law.

“I want to see what they come up with,” he said in an interview on New Jersey 101.5. “There might be other ways to address the issues, the legitimate issues that advocates have raised. I’d be willing to listen to all that stuff.”

Christie commands the national spotlight more than ever as GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s most outspoken surrogate – a position that may help him at home.

Though 60 percent of Garden State Republicans said it is “somewhat likely” or “very likely” the former Massachusetts governor will tap Christie as his running mate, 68 percent of them agree with Christie, who has said time and time again he that he does not have the “right kind of personality” to fill the number two spot.

The numbers, released in a Quinnipiac University poll Wednesday, found 53 percent of New Jersey voters approve of the job he’s doing.

Gov. Chris Christie has declared war on the public school system and the teachers who work there.

First, he started his propaganda that the teachers were responsible for the economic crisis in the state. As absurd as this is, many people chose to believe it. Why? Because when things get complicated and scary, people want to find an easy target for all of their angst, anger and hardship.

The governor was eager to offer up the teachers as this target. He cut school aid and proclaimed that these cuts would not result in any loss of teaching jobs, nor affect the quality of education.

These claims were patently absurd, yet many believed. The laying off of teachers began immediately, and many students suffered a decline in their educational programs.

The governor declares that teachers are responsible for poor academic performance. This is also absurd.

It is not a coincidence that the majority of failing schools are in inner cities and/or economically deprived areas. If only teachers could cure all the ills of society — addiction, crumbling infrastructure, crime, poverty, families in crisis — they surely would.

Despite the research to the contrary, the governor has declared charter schools to be the answer. Beware the red herring. The vilification of teachers serves to keep the public from asking the real questions and demanding answers.

What happens to the millions in lottery sales? The economic crisis in this state was caused by the downturn in the economy and the failure of government to be good stewards. We have failed cities — look at Camden. Who will he blame for that?

We need to get past the rhetoric and start dealing with the real issues in this state. We need to demand accountability, honesty and transparency in government.

Rosemary Richards

Little Silver

NEW BRUNSWICK — A scholar who studies and blogs about education finance says improving the state’s urban schools will take more money — and that merit pay is not likely to help.

Bruce Baker, an associate professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, spoke with The Associated Press for an occasional series of interviews on public education reform in New Jersey.

Baker’s work is more often cited by those skeptical about the so-called reform movement in education. He’s skeptical about whether students’ standardized test scores should be incorporated into decisions about which teachers should be laid off and which should make more money. Those are among ideas promoted by President Obama, Gov. Chris Christie and New Jersey Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf.

Baker, a former middle-school science teacher and tennis coach, has done research funded in part by teachers unions. But he’s also quick to point out that he once did consulting work for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination and is a critic of teachers unions.

AP: What’s the state of New Jersey’s public education system?

Baker: It’s strong. It’s strong for some reasons within its control and it’s strong for other reasons that are just the luck of being geographically where it is and having an affluent, educated population.

Part of what’s made it strong is the state has put financial effort into its schools. The state has — through a back-and-forth between the Legislature, governor and courts over time — targeted resources to high-poverty areas, established one of the strongest preschool programs in the country and has made strides in high-poverty settings that are well beyond what other states have done.

AP: If you look internationally?

Baker: The international comparisons on tests are difficult to make. New Jersey and Massachusetts and Vermont, for example, would tend to compare favorably with Singapore and Finland.

AP. What needs to be reformed about New Jersey’s education system? What are its biggest problems?

Baker: From a research angle, if you looked at the high-performing and the low-performing schools and you asked yourself what’s different about them, well, our highest-performing schools also have step-structured pay scales, collective bargained agreements, tenure, union contracts as do our low-performing schools. That’s not a differentiating factor. The personnel factors aren’t hugely different.

When we look at the charter schools that are high-performing, the charter schools tend to be structured.

These things that we’re talking about like merit pay, disrupting union contracts and collective bargaining don’t tend to be the things that the high-performing schools are doing.

Any system ought to be looking at ways to increase efficiency — making it desirable for the best teachers on the labor market to want to go into Newark, Camden or Jersey City, solving that teacher quality inequity problem. But making their pay based on test scores is probably more likely to do the opposite.

AP: Is the biggest problem the difference between the high-performing schools and the low-performing urban schools?

Baker: We have concentrated poverty, concentrated minority populations, very highly concentrated in certain areas. The costs of getting good outcomes in a high-poverty, high-minority world … is very high. … Because when you’ve got 80 to 90 percent of your kids low-income, large shares of your kids non-English-speaking, kids from homeless families. To raise the outcomes in that kind of setting requires substantial investment in early-childhood, substantial investment in class-size reduction — kind of layering on all of the possible strategies to make things work.

The alternative is if you can actually break up concentrated poverty and have kids more integrated and better mixed across settings, you can reduce the costs of getting to the same outcomes. But typically what you find in the political dynamic is that people are much more willing to pay the price of extreme segregation than to actually move forward on desegregation.

AP. Why is it we’re so interested in using test data?

Baker: It’s what we’ve got. I certainly don’t want to get rid of it entirely. It’s all how you use the information. Testing data can be a useful tool for what I would refer to as system monitoring.

We ought to be giving these tests for a reason other than giving the tests and saying because they are tests, they therefore are an accountability measure. A lot of people are doing it. New Jersey’s not alone on that one.

I understand this obsession — that we’ve got to have something firm, we’ve got to have something quantitative that we can base these teacher ratings on. I think we’re also kidding ourselves when we say education is the only industry that doesn’t do this. … If there are productivity metrics in different settings, they’re often dealing with raw quantity of production, which would be more similar to number of sections taught or number of students taught.

AP: To hear Gov. Christie or Acting Commissioner Cerf talk about the state of the schools, it often sounds like, “if only the teachers were better,” to hear NJEA officials talk about it, it sounds like they’re saving, “Teachers are doing all they can. The problems are not our fault.” The truth lies somewhere in the middle of that range, right?

Baker: It’s certainly hard to distill that second one. It’s certainly, I don’t think, an effective form of messaging. I think any organization of teachers … has to be viewing themselves as possibly having an effect. I do think the message comes out that way. I think that’s problematic.

If you look at the biggest differences between the schools that are doing well and the schools that are doing poorly, there may be differences in teaching quality. There may be differences in skill-set of the teachers who are sorting themselves among the more and less desirable schools. We have evidence from a number of years of studies of teacher labor-market behaviors in disadvantaged, high-needs, high-minority, high-poverty settings. Teachers will avoid those settings to begin with and they’ll leave those settings when they can.

It may be that we’ve got some inequities in teaching quality. But to suggest that those inequities are a function of not having merit pay or they’re a function of having collective bargaining and a union presence doesn’t seem to fit when those structures also exist in the highly successful and affluent districts.

AP: If you were czar of New Jersey, what would you do to improve the school system?

Baker: I think we’ve got to keep up the effort of targeting resources toward the high-need districts, and the key is that equitable and adequate funding — and this is my big punch-line — is the necessary condition for everything. If you want to run a good charter school, if you want to run a good public school, you’ve got to have enough money to do a good job.

AP: These sound like ideas that are more likely than to lower taxes

Baker: We could take the money we have in the state aid as it is and target it more aggressively. Many towns that lost state aid would raise their property taxes more as they do and seem willing to do invariably anyway. … They’re willing to vote more taxes on themselves and maybe complain about perhaps it the next day.

————

Follow Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill

One in a periodic series on efforts to remake New Jersey’s education system.

TRENTON — A bill that paves a legal path toward new public-private schools in three cities – including the Lanning Square Elementary School in Camden – passed two legislative committees Thursday.

The Democratic-sponsored bill was amended to overcome Republicans objections, though a legal advocate for low-income students threatened to bring a lawsuit to stop the program if the bill becomes law.

The Urban Hope Act would allow for up to four privately operated public schools to be authorized and built each in Newark, Trenton and Camden.

The bill (A4426/S3173) passed both the state Assembly and Senate budget committees and is expected to be voted on in both chambers Monday, the last day of the two-year state legislative session.

South Jersey Democratic leader George E. Norcross III has been pushing for the bill, particularly because he wants to see a new private-public school in the Lanning Square section in the center of Camden.

Gov. Chris Christie had indicated earlier he would support it, but the administration has been reviewing the bill, which changed in recent days and on Thursday.

The bill is sponsored by Norcross’ brother, state Sen. Donald Norcross, D-Camden. It is controversial because it circumvents the state’s School Development Authority, which had been charged with constructing schools in 31 of the state’s low-income school districts that are protected under two decades worth of state Supreme Court rulings.

The bill is also controversial because it allows nonprofits that would eventually build the schools to be exempt from public bidding requirements.

However, school operators will have to find private financing. Republican Assembly members objected to a provision that allowed for public bonding for the schools, so it was removed.

George Norcross, in an interview Wednesday, said that public bidding laws have proven to escalate the costs of projects, not lower them.

“Public bidding causes all sorts of litigation, arbitration and change orders,” he said. “Why hamstring someone from going in and negotiating?”

Sen. Norcross reiterated the stance in comments Thursday. He said private school operators will be able to make payments on the buildings simply from the per-student aid they receive from the school districts, thus saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center in Newark, which has successfully sued the state to gain billions of dollars in additional state aid for the 31 low-income school districts, said that his organization was readying to file a lawsuit to block the bill. He contends the state, not a private entity, should build the school.

Sciarra said that state taxpayers have already spent $11 million to purchase the land at Lanning Square, demolish buildings that had been on the property and clean it from environmental hazards. A design for the new school has already been completed, he said.

And the state has cash on hand in its school building funds to construct it, and even if not, the state has already authorized $3.9 billion in new school construction statewide, Sciarra said.

“The money is there. It’s not a financial issue,” Sciarra said.

He estimated it would take another $25 million to $30 million to build the Lanning Square school.

The state’s school construction effort, however, has also seen its share of controversy. The agency burned through its initial $8.6 billion allocation and completed a fraction of the schools it was supposed to complete as projects faced cost overruns and were bloated with professional fees and project management contracts.

Camden resident R. Mangaliso Davis opposed the bill at the Assembly Budget Committee hearing. He complained that the community had no input into the program.

“This bill will take away the one school that we should have gotten 10 years ago,” he said.

Republican Assembly budget officer Declan O’Scanlon of Monmouth County, said he believed the pilot program would provide new alternatives for urban students.

“I think what you’ll find is the school will perform,” O’Scanlon said.

The bill allows school boards in the designated districts to approve up to four “renaissance” school projects in their districts.

The districts would be able to appoint non-profit organizations to build and operate the schools. But those groups may buy or rent land from for-profit entities or may authorize a for-profit company to build the new school.

If the school were to become defunct, the land would immediately be deeded back to the school district. That raised a question from some GOP Assembly members about how a bank might secure a loan for a building.

The school district would pay nearly all of the per-child education costs to the nonprofit agency, which could use that money to pay to construct and operate the schools.

The bill calls for renaissance schools to be authorized to operate for ten years, but will face an annual review on whether it was meeting goals and improving school achievement. An independent researcher is to review the program after five years, according to a provision in the bill.

The New Jersey Education Association backed the bill because the new school will still be considered a public school and all staff must meet state certifications.

“It provides innovation within public education, along with accountability,” said Ginger Gold Schnitzer, the top lobbyist for the NJEA.

New Jersey’s bid to waive the requirements of a federal education law includes proposals to reward high-performing schools and force low-performing ones to remove ineffective teachers, according to a draft of the state’s application.

The “No Child Left Behind” law requires all public school students to demonstrate proficiency in math and reading by 2014, but it would be nearly impossible for New Jersey to comply — 55 percent of the state’s public schools have students who do not meet that standard, test data show.

In seeking the waiver from 100 percent compliance, the state’s application proposes a new system for public school accountability that would group schools into three tiers based on students’ performance on standardized tests. The federal law deems any school not in compliance as failing, a penalty that could result in withheld funds after the 2014 deadline.

According to the state’s application, the 5 percent of schools with the lowest test scores would be deemed “priority.” Another group with low graduation rates or wide achievement gaps would be considered “focus.” The state’s best schools would be called “reward.”

Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf said the proposed accountability system would support struggling schools and offer credit for progress toward the “flawed” federal law’s goal of having all students demonstrate proficiency in math and reading.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach to school improvement, which is why we must focus our resources and most significant interventions on those schools with a longstanding history of low performance,” Cerf said.

The Department of Education released a draft Thursday of the state’s waiver application to seek public comment on the proposals. Comments must be submitted through the department’s website by Nov. 9.

Under the application, “priority” schools could be forced to fire their principals, remove ineffective teachers and extend the school day to boost achievement. “Reward” schools would be given financial bonuses.

The application notes swift passage of Gov. Chris Christie’s education reform bills would make it easier to implement the state’s proposals. Legislation the governor supports includes overhauling teacher tenure, offering bonuses to the best teachers and expanding access to charter schools.

Changing state law would make the application’s proposals more effective, a Department of Education spokesman said.

Martha DeBlieu, a research director for the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, said the application is not an appropriate venue to advocate for legislative proposals the union does not support.

By Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger

They’re among the best, but they have a long way to go.

Fourth- and eighth-graders in New Jersey ranked near the top in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests in math and reading, posting the second-highest reading scores in both grade levels, according to data released today.

The state’s fourth-graders ranked fourth nationally in math — up from fifth in 2009 — while eighth-graders got the third-highest scores, up from fifth two years ago.

Massachusetts students posted the highest scores in all four areas.

But results of the NAEP assessments, often nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card,” also showed fewer than 40 percent of students nationwide were “proficient” in all of the categories tested.

New Jersey fared somewhat better, with 43 percent of fourth-graders and 45 percent of eighth-graders scoring proficient or better in reading. In math, 51 percent of fourth-graders and 47 percent of eighth-graders were proficient or better.

NAEP defines proficient as “solid academic performance” and “competency over challenging subject matter.”

“Being basic isn’t good enough,” Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson said. “The NAEP is sort of the gold standard. It’s the best thing we have to measure true proficiency.

“We want highly proficient,” she said. “Obviously, we need to make leaps.”

The NAEP tests were administered between January and March this year to a representative sample of about 200,000 fourth graders and 170,000 eighth-graders across the country. In New Jersey, that included 3,100 fourth-graders and 2,500 eighth-graders.

The tests — which are scored from 0 to 500 — are the only nationally representative assessments given.

Nationally, the results showed an upward trend in math for both fourth and eighth graders, with a one point increase in overall scores since 2009, when the tests were last given. In reading, however, fourth-grade scores remained unchanged from 2009. Eighth grade reading scores went up by a point from two years ago.

The results also offered a few tidbits that help student performance. Among them: Fourth-graders who read for fun almost every day scored higher in reading.

The national results also showed the size of the ‘achievement gap” between wealthy and poor students, or between students of different races. In New Jersey, the results showed an “achievement gap” between wealthy and poor students that is among the highest in the country.

New Jersey Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf praised the state’s “significant achievement” on the exams, but also said much work needs to be done to help lowest-performing students.

“We must find the right balance between celebrating our successes and a sense of urgency to improve,” he said.

David Sciarra, executive director of the Newark-based Education Law Center, also noted the nagging achievement gap “reflecting the growing inequality in our state.

“The challenge now is to work together on proven efforts that will improve and strengthen NJ’s public schools for all of our students,” he said.

Anderson, the Newark superintendent, said she believes there is “hope” of improving.

“There are schools all over the country, hundreds of schools where 90 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunch, and 90 percent are going math and reading at proficiency,” she said. “There are core things they do very well. And I find that very hopeful.”

The math and reading results are available at http://nationsreportcard.gov.

By Jeanette Rundquist/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger