This is an article from the Courier Post Online, here is a link to the article:

But less state funds for low-income areas
TRENTON — State school aid figures unveiled late Thursday showed that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration plans to take money away from urban and low-income school districts and provide additional funds to suburban areas.

Camden City, for example, is set to lose $5.5 million compared with last year’s aid, under formulas that would be adjusted by the state Department of Education. Asbury Park would receive $2.4 million less than last year. Still, Camden would get $276 million and Asbury Park, $55.2 million.

Meanwhile, the Freehold Regional district in Monmouth County would be the big winner in the state, with $3.4 million more, for a total of $51.2 million. Cherry Hill is slated to get $12.7 million, up $1.4 million over last year.

Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf said the changes were necessary to better equalize educational funding and help foster better schools in low-income areas.

“These recommendations, along with the new policy aspects, will serve disadvantaged children in the state better than they’ve ever been served before,” Cerf said. “We are all living in a universe where we’ve been led to believe that you equate effectiveness with dollars. I don’t think the evidence supports that at all.”

The Legislature will review the proposal as part of the budget process.

School aid and property taxes have been the most contentious issues in the state for nearly two decades. Under a series of state Supreme Court decisions, regularly criticized by Christie, 31 low-income school districts received the majority of state funds for years.

This is an opinion piece from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

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

This is an article from NJ.com, here is a link to the article:

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.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

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.

This is an article from NJ.com, here is a link to the article:

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.

Below is the test score lookup tool from the previously posted NJ.com article Despite aid cuts, N.J. students improved test scores in 2010-11 school year:

Online Database by Caspio


Click here to load this Caspio Online Database.

This is an article from NJ.com, here is a link to the article:

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.

This is an article from the The Hunterdon Review, here is a link to the article:

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.

This is an opinion piece from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

IRVINGTON — Gov. Chris Christie told an inner-city audience Thursday he has high hopes his education reform agenda will boost overall student performance but conceded challenges remain in working with children from broken and dysfunctional homes.

“Kids who are not responding (and) don’t have the hunger to learn, as governor I can’t do anything about the parents. I can’t pretend I can go into every home and say, ‘Why don’t you care about your child learning?’ ” Christie said. “I don’t have any business going into somebody’s home and judging them. I don’t think they’d listen to me anyway.”

Christie went on to tout ideas on overhauling teacher tenure and increasing school choice during his town hall visit to the Christian Love Baptist Church.

Still, Christie said it will be difficult to turn around the failure of children where problems can be traced to parents who aren’t in the picture — because of working multiple jobs or being jailed or being deceased, he said.

“There are going to be a certain percentage of children (failing) because of their environment because their parents either don’t care or aren’t present,” the Republican governor said. “My problem is all those things are used as excuses for not getting at one of the things we know can be fixed, which is to make sure we have a quality teacher in front of the classroom.”

The event was held in the old church and was packed to capacity, with perhaps close to 500 people in the main worship area and a basement auxiliary room.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

VOORHEES — A vocal foe of a planned charter school in Cherry Hill got under Gov. Chris Christie’s skin during a town hall meeting here Wednesday.

About an hour into a session that had been cordial and laced with applause, Cherry Hill resident Alan Erlich interrupted Christie as the governor was answering a question about the school, Regis Academy. Emotions quickly escalated.

“I don’t have a solution for every problem,” Christie said to Erlich immediately after the interruption. “You had an opportunity to speak before. Here’s the bottom line: I don’t have a solution for everything.”

But after Erlich charged the charter school’s approval was a favor for a Christie supporter, the governor denied the claim.

“Who are you talking about?” asked Christie, who went on to say he does not know Amir Khan, a pastor who is organizing the school at a church complex in the Ashland area. “I haven’t given one friend a charter school.”

After the heated exchange with Erlich, Christie briefly turned back to the woman who had questioned him and told her he’d get back to her in a second. He then continued his ire toward Erlich.

“It’s guys like you who are rude and yell out in the middle when I’m trying to answer this woman’s question that does not allow for civil discourse in this state,” the governor said, drawing applause from some audience members.