Tighter standards, better ways to measure progress, increased accountability and an easier regulatory environment are what acting N.J. Department of Education chief Christopher Cerf says he has planned for the state's charter schools as a way to encourage growth and educational quality.
"These are exciting times for charter schools," said Cerf, speaking Monday at the New Jersey Charter School Association conference at Bally's Atlantic City Hotel & Casino. "It's also a time for change, and it's a time when we have to live with an increasingly vocal and organized opposition." [emphasis mine]
Life would be so much simpler if people would just stop looking at the facts about charters and just accept them coming into their communities whether they are want them or need them. Like those pesky plebes in Cherry Hill and Voorhees! It's just so annoying that they want control of their schools and their tax dollars! Don't they understand we're doing all this maneuvering behind their backs for their own good?
Cerf told several hundred charter school teachers, board members, parents and students that the Christie administration strongly supports the schools as an alternative to traditional public schools.
"I absolutely expect an increasingly friendly, lighter touch, regulatory environment," Cerf said.
However, Cerf said, he plans to enact stronger standards for granting charter school applications and enhancing accountability for those charter schools that are failing standards.
Yes, we're going to be tougher, but we're going to be less tough. Got it?
(Kafka and Orwell would love writing about the NJ DOE.)
Association President Carlos Perez said in opening remarks that charter school students also are public school students and they should get the same level of funding. Currently, charter schools do not receive money toward facilities and must pay for housing the school and other building-related expenses out of their operating budget.
Bruce Baker has an important post up about the Opportunity Scholarship Act - New Jersey's voucher bill. Basically, the way the bill is now written, it would be little more than a massive giveaway of tax funds to yeshivas in Lakewood and, to a lesser degree, Passaic; somewhere on the order of $67 million. All voucher supporters should have to answer to Bruce's arguments here.
But his post also struck me for this:
NJOSA would provide scholarships to children in families below the 250% income threshold for poverty. The text of the bill indicates that eligible children are those either attending a chronically failing school in one of the districts above or eligible to enroll in such school in the following year (which would seem to include any child within the attendance boundaries of these districts even if presently already enrolled in private schools).
"Low-income child" means a child from a household with an income that does not exceed 2.50 times the official federal poverty threshold for the calendar year preceding the school year for which an educational scholarship is to be distributed.
What does that translate into for a dollar amount? Well, the poverty level for a family of four in the contiguous 48 states is $22,350. 250% of that is $55, 875.
As I reflect on yesterday's joint hearings of the Senate Higher Education Committee and the Assembly Higher Education Committee regarding the "merger" of Rowan and Rutgers-Camden, I think of the warning to not put the cart before the horse. This phrase is often used to explain how things must be done in the right order, especially when attempting to avoid failure. In my mind, the cart is the Barer report (a big cart filled with ideas, but lacking details). This cart was thrust onto the road, well in front of any means to carry it, in fact it doesn't even seem to have a hitch. Even more distressing is the fact that there is no horse in sight, much less in front of it! After yesterday's hearings, Governor Christie still insists this merger will happen, despite the fact that no one has seen a plan for implementation, or even solid facts, thus no horse to pull the cart.
It was noted by a Committee member that it appears that the plan has come before the facts. Those facts have yet to be disclosed by the Governor's office with no evidence that the details exist. With the absence of communication and information from the Governor, many of yesterday's speakers shared their knowledge and detailed research with the Committee.
There are several detailed articles regarding yesterday's hearings written by journalists. I am not a journalist. I did attempt to tweet the proceedings, which can be read here and here I will provide a brief summary and overall impression.
The tone was set with instructions to the audience that there was to be no clapping, cheering, booing or laughing. Clearly, this was a group of educators, expecting good classroom behavior :)
Many of the points made on both sides have been heard and written before. I urge anyone interested in more detailed information to visit this site, especially the page intended for NJ Legislators. The text of some of the testimony from the hearings is available here.
Of the 50 speakers, the majority were speaking against the merger, most representing Rutgers-Camden. I had hoped to hear more from Rowan staff, students and faculty, especially since the hearings were held at Rowan. I was actually quite surprised at how few spoke, but glad to hear some of their thoughts.
My overall impression from the Rowan speakers is that they have a long history of change, are used to change and are preparing for change should it come. I did not get an overwhelming sense of strong feelings either way, simply an acceptance. The committee did learn that Rowan has been working internally on implementation of the merger "for several months" and have prepared a report. That report did not appear to be readily available, and the committee did request a copy. A member of Rowan's board of trustees did provide one copy of this report to the chair.
The Committee did seem surprised to find out that at this time neither parties, Rowan or Rutgers-Camden are involved in any discussions/team/committee taking place within the Governor's office. Obviously, this has been one of the major issues with this merger, major parties are not being included in discussions or being given details, if they exist.
Union representatives from all parties, including UMDNJ were there asking very important questions regarding the human element and the details involved in HR and labor relations.
Some of the points brought up during the hearings address the idea that the new entity would suddenly become a research university. This idea does not take into consideration elements such as a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, or access to expensive databases and electronic resources provided by a research library.
Rutgers has a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the prestigious national honor society. This is a University chapter. Loss of affiliation with Rutgers would eliminate access to this, as Rowan does not currently have a chapter, and it takes several years and stringent guidelines in order to establish a chapter.
Loss of affiliation with Rutgers would also eliminate access to a research library. Students on the Camden campus have access to all of the Rutgers library resources, severing that tie would eliminate access to many expensive databases. A more detailed analysis is available here.
It is difficult to establish a research university without access to a research library and creation of a research library is quite an expensive and lengthy process.
A major theme in the presentations is the fact that Rowan and Rutgers-Camden are very different schools, each providing unique opportunities and experiences for the students who chose to attend. Eliminating this choice does not seem to be a way to keep students from leaving the state as pro-merger individuals would argue. One speaker even presented an overview of student outmigration that does not support the pro-merger stance - here.
I find it very interesting that a pro-merger argument is that South Jersey does not have a research university, when in fact it does and it is Rutgers-Camden. In listening to the presentations and reading the well researched reports and analysis, it is clear that the Rutgers-Camden community is conducting the research that should have been done by the members of the Barer report before it was presented.
The Higher Education Committee expressed the need for due diligence and for obtaining more details on the plan. There are many unanswered questions and hopefully the Committee will continue to try to seek answers to these important concerns by citizens, taxpayers and voters.
Some truly outstanding reporting from blogger Darcie Cimarusti this weekend lays bare the absolutely hopeless state of the charter school approval process in New Jersey. Conflict of interest, political favoritism, and incompetence run rampant in the latest chapter of the sage of Cherry Hill's Regis Academy. Is this the first of many charter school scandals waiting to be exposed?
Khan won approval for his charter school to open on the grounds of his church this fall. Khan admitted that the church was counting on the money that the Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Lawnside, and Somerdale school districts would have to pay the charter school - even though these are outstanding districts that do not want nor need a charter.
Save Our Schools NJ reports that the full Assembly will vote today on two charter school bills:
-Assembly bill 1877 (bill A3852/S2243 last session), which would require local approval before the establishment of new charter schools, and
-Assembly bill 2147 (bills A3356/S3005/S3001 last session), which would increase charter school educational and financial accountability and transparency and address the fact that NJ charter school students do not represent the demographics of their sending districts.
A2147 seems like a no-brainer: charters should be held to high standards of transparency and accountability. And since charters will be required to keep records for both student demographics and attrition, ACTING Commissioner Cerf will no longer be able to play the game of touting charter "successes" on one hand while claiming he can't produce reports on charters he promised long ago because he doesn't have the data.
In other words: when it comes to charters, Cerf will have to put up or shut up. Good.
I would normally say the solution is to put the fate of charters in the hands of the sending districts, but there are problems with that as well. Districts like Newark and Jersey City are still being run by the state, so the citizens would have no voice in charter approvals. And it's possible special interest groups could capture a board, approve charters for their own children, and subsequently decimate the local public schools (Lakewood isn't far away from that scenario).
Some will argue that this will make it very difficult for any new charters to be approved, to which I say, "Yeah - so what?" We have lots of evidence that "successful" charters are not replicable, as they serve student populations that are fundamentally different from pubic schools. We shouldn't be pushing for more of these schools without solid evidence that they can actually "beat the odds" and help all children succeed.
Unless and until ACTING Commissioner Cerf produces his long-delayed report (which he promised "as quickly as is humanly possible"), and it takes student demographics into account, there is little point in rolling the dice on more charters. A1877 is the best way to put the brakes on this creeping privatization of pubic schools.
We seem to have come to a critical point in the education deform movement. No, that's not a typo: I don't mean reform, I mean deform, because the people who want to use unreliable and faulty data to evaluate teachers and deny educators their negotiated due process rights are not reformers and never have been. They are out to twist education from a public responsibility to a privatized option whose purpose is to serve the needs of their wealthy supporters at the expense of unions and educators who know best how the system works and how it can best serve children.
First of all, I don't ever want to hear the Star-Ledger Editorial Board complain about money the NJEA spends on advertising; not after today's anti-tenure editorial. Granting a very occasional space to the union to run an op-ed in rebuttal is hardly equivalent to many, many pieces the Ledger has written in support of policies to abolish tenure as we know it. The NJEA has every right - in fact, they have a duty - to their members to present the other side of this debate.
(And thanks to Matt Katz of the Philadelphia Inquirer for demonstrating that there is wide-spread support among teachers for the NJEA to continue this information campaign.)
I'll assume this piece was written by Tom Moran, who has made his feelings about tenure quite clear. I won't relive the entire history of my attempts to engage him (if you have nothing better to do this afternoon, here it is); suffice to say I know for a fact that Moran is well-aware of my arguments. For whatever reason, however, he has never seen fit to address them.
But now we're getting down to it: the Ruiz bill is getting closer and closer to an actual, final form. I believe Moran has an obligation - not to me, but to his readers - to answer these substantive criticisms of the bill:
1) Where is the evidence that there are large numbers of tenured "bad" teachers holding back students in New Jersey? The "17 out of 100,000" argument has been disproved here and other places many times, but even if it were true, it's not proof that we have so many "bad" teachers that we must get rid of an anti-cronyism measure that's been in place for decades. Where is the empirical evidence that this is such a huge problem? I've put forward the case that it is not; where is your rebuttal?
2) Tenure is a feature of both high-performing and low-performing schools; doesn't that prove that tenure itself is not a factor in student achievement?This is transparently obvious, yet no one on the anti-tenure side ever seems to want to address the point.
3) The Ruiz bill allows districts to strip tenure without a hearing by an impartial third-party; isn't that exactly the same as simply getting rid of tenure? If a district can take away tenure solely on an administrator's says so - which is exactly what the Ruiz bill does - then that is the same as having no tenure at all.
4) Don't we have plenty of evidence that school districts can easily become politicized, ripe for turning schools into patronage mills?Elizabeth alone is proof enough of that - and the primary reporting has come from Moran's own newspaper.
5) Why should "bad" principals have the power to hire and fire their staffs at will? If a "good" teacher is working for a "bad" principal, and the principal has the power to fire the teacher without appeal to a third-party, how does that possibly help students? Doesn't a principal need a check on his power over his staff - especially in a public service position?
6) For decades, senior teachers have earned more as an incentive to join and remain in the profession; why wouldn't a district fire those more expensive teachers the minute they could to save money? It is completely logical to assume they would, isn't it? How does that make teaching a more attractive profession?
7) Why would we ever consider changing tenure, based on a new evaluation system, when that evaluation system isn't even in place? The bill gives far too much power to the Commissioner of Education, who has sole discretion to approve evaluation systems that haven't even been tested. And the New York City debacle shows that teacher evaluations systems are not to be trusted automatically.
8) If the problem is the length, expense, and difficulty of conducting tenure hearings, why not just cap their time and cost, and make the procedures clear? This is exactly what the NJEA proposes, yet there is a bias in the commentariat against anything the union puts on the table. No wonder teachers are demoralized.
These are simple questions and they demand a response. It's very difficult for any teacher to take the Ruiz bill - or any other anti-tenure policy - seriously until these concerns are addressed.
Tom Moran, you are the Editorial Page Editor for the largest newspaper in the state. You owe it to your readers to answer these questions before you continue to push for a radical restructuring of a taxpayer protection that has been in place for many, many years, and helped foster one of the best school systems in the nation.
I'm amused by this video of my old boss Rep. Rush Holt, who is here explaining his history on Jeopardy (he was a 5-time winner decades ago) and how he came to be matched up against IBM's supercomputer Watson. Holt is the only human to ever beat Watson in a Jeopardy contest. He talks about how since he was a kid he's been interested in how the world works (that's science) and how people get along (that's politics), the first time he saw a computer (in a Scientific American spinoff). Holt uses his vanquishing of Watson to talk about investing in research - public and private - and investing in the kind of education that will produce the next wave of scientists and researchers. A common theme in this physicist-congressman's life and work, and one he's in a great position to make.
But really what gets me about this video (made by the social media folks at IBM, where Watson was hatched), is the solar power backlighting, the unironic illumination as New Jersey's rocket scientist discusses ... well, illuminating.
We've now had over a year of ACTING Commissioner Chris Cerf's reign at the NJ DOE. Looking back, one overarching theme emerges:
Data abuse.
Cerf likes to present himself as a wonk, despite the fact that he is a lawyer by training and holds no advanced degrees in education. He love charts, graphs, figures, and "factesque" data. The problem is that he seems to believe the role of research is to support his ideology, rather than guide him to the truth.
Unfortunately for him, highly qualified education researchers have been watching the NJDOE. And their examinations of Cerf's presentations are quite damning.
Let's begin with Cerf's latest focus: poverty and student achievement. Bruce Baker of Rutgers takes down a particularly brazen bit of Cerf's mendacity:
MSNBC's Morning Joe, which provides the most visible national platform for the Christie sass and bluster that host Joe Scarborough loves so much, will be broadcasting live Friday morning from Fort Lee High School.
Once again, NBC is ignoring teachers. Can't have people who've devoted their lives to children get in the way when the movers and shakers want to get reformy. They might ask too many tough questions.
The focus is 'education reform' and the guests are Gov. Christie, fellow governors Jack Markell (Delaware) and Dannel Malloy (Connecticut) and the ubiquitous Michelle Rhee, who pops up ever anew on panels and teevee shows, despite the fact she's been discredited and called on to explain her inaccuracies many, manytimes over.
On Monday, I wrote about ACTING Education Commissioner Cerf's reformy new idea: abandoning "free lunch" qualification as a measure of student poverty. Cerf is terribly worried that we might be over-counting the number of poor kids in our schools, which means spending more on education - heaven forbid!
A recent analysis by the state auditor estimated that up to 37 percent of participants in the federally administered free and reduced-lunch program are fraudulently enrolled. Cerf cites that finding, along with reports by The Star-Ledger last year that Elizabeth's school board president and two spouses of district employees allegedly falsified their income so their children could receive meals, as proof of the need for a change.
"There is a perverse incentive to sign up these kids and it's a big conflict of interest," state Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Warren), a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, argued recently. "I think it's a statewide problem and Elizabeth is just the tip of the iceberg."
Why is it absurd for Cerf - and, for matter Doherty - to point to Elizabeth as a hotbed of corruption? Well, how about the fact that the Elizabeth Board of Education is pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of the Christie Administration?
March 2nd, 2010
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Mayor Christian Bollwage run a powerful Democratic political organization in Elizabeth, but control of the local school board has remained out of their reach in recent years. In 2009, eight of the nine elected Board of Education members endorsed Republican Christopher Christie for governor against. [sic] The endorsements may have had some impact: Democrat Jon Corzine carried Elizabeth by 8,014 votes in 2005 (74%-22%), but last year his margin fell to 5,072 (68%-29%).
The Christie campaign said at the time that the mostly Democratic school board members were frustrated by Corzine's failure to assure funding for critical education programs as their reason for supporting the GOP candidate. After the election, Christie named Elizabeth Superintendent of Schools Pablo Munoz to his Education transition team and Elizabeth Board of Education President Rafael Fajardo to the panel coordinating transition for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. [emphasis mine]
An appointment by Gov. Chris Christie to his Education Effectiveness Task Force has opened deep political wounds in Elizabeth between longtime, bitter enemies state Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and former School Board member Rafael Fajardo.
Christie selected Fajardo for his nine-member task force, infuriating Lesniak, whose allies in city government fought a protracted legal battle with Fajardo in addition to every other war waged in recent local political history.
"It's remarkable that someone found guilty by the courts of using over $88,000 of taxpayer dollars for political ends would be given this kind of authority," Lesniak told PolitickerNJ.com, referring to a glossy pamphlet prepared by Fajardo and the Board of Education.
"Obviously, it's the governor's call, but he ought to take a second look at Fajardo's actions when he was on the Board of Education," added the veteran senator. "He lost the case in three venues: the Department of Education, the administrative office of courts and the appelate division: three independent bodies. He illegally spent education dollars. If that's not a disqualification, I don't know what it is."
And it's not like there is evidence of large-scale free-lunch fraud in Elizabeth: the investigation was limited to two administrators and Fajardo's successor as BOE President, Marie Munn. And, yes, Munn did endorse Christie's bid for governor (credit where it's due: my source for this is none other than Paul Mulshine).
So, yes, ACTING Commissioner Cerf, there is a problem with school lunch fraud in Elizabeth - but it has NOTHING to do with a large-scale over-counting of poor children, and everything to do with your boss's political cronies.
By the way: I can't think of a better example of why we still need tenure than Elizabeth. Thanks for reminding us, ACTING Commissioner Cerf.
In New Jersey and across the nation, the number of students living in poverty is determined by how many of them qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, a federal program run by the Department of Agriculture. But the count is not just about the federally subsidized meals - schools with poor students in the lunch program receive up to 57 percent more state aid than their peers.
Citing growing concerns with the program's susceptibility to fraud and error, acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf is calling for a governor-appointed task force to study whether there's "an alternative way to measure New Jersey's at-risk student population." The move has the potential to shift where the money goes in the state school system, rekindling New Jersey's long debate over school funding for needy children.
"It is hardly a well kept secret that (free and reduced lunch counts) are inaccurate and even at times fraudulent," Cerf said in an e-mail to The Star-Ledger Saturday. "We owe it to school districts and taxpayers alike to explore whether there are better ways to identify disadvantaged children."
See, something horrible happens when these little grifters or their schools fake the poverty level: they get more money for education! And then the state might have to stop giving tax gifts to millionaires and corporations! Can you imagine?!
School financing in New Jersey is like a dysfunctional family's Christmas. Everyone wakes up early, runs downstairs, and anxiously divvies up what's under the tree. Some favored children get a big pile of shiny new toys; others get socks. No one knows why, and everyone knows next year will be different; it all depends on Daddy's mood the night before (and how deep he got into the eggnog bowl).
Here in Jersey, "Daddy" is none other then Chris Christie, and the "gifts" he hands out are school aid. Yesterday, superintendents, school boards, educators and parents perused spreadsheets released by the NJDOE, anxiously peering to see what presents Chris Chringle left under their schools' tree.
Apparently, the governor thinks some districts have been naughty: 97 districts are losing aid. Among them is Newark, which is losing population to charter schools, despite the fact that ACTING Commissioner Cerf still hasn't released the long promised report (nearly a year) on charter schools effectiveness.
Figures flow from Jennifer Cavallaro's memory as she recounts her futile crusade for an extra million bucks for her son's school district in Gloucester County.
Nine: That's how many Gov. Christie town hall meetings the 35-year-old mother of two attended. She always arrived five hours early to ensure a front-row seat, and the governor called on her to speak eight times.
Fifty: That's how many supporters joined her at the Hammonton town hall last March, when Christie himself encouraged Cavallaro to push for legislation to supplement funding for the Swedesboro-Woolwich School District, which spends only half as much per pupil as the state average. "I will help you," the governor told her.
And 4 p.m.: That's the time she got a call one day last month from an apologetic governor's aide, saying Christie would veto the bill she had shepherded through the Legislature at his suggestion.
"I was devastated," Cavallaro said.
On Tuesday - day 612 of this quest for more money for a handful of Gloucester County districts struggling with skyrocketing enrollment - Cavallaro will head to state Assembly chambers to watch Christie deliver a budget address that, she hopes, will offer a solution.
She won't be the only one hanging on the Republican governor's words. Interest groups of all sorts - along with taxpayers, mayors, and school superintendents in poor and wealthy towns alike - will wait to hear how the fiscally conservative governor chooses to allocate about $30 billion in state funding.
We now have a school funding system in the state where parents need to organize to lobby the governor - and hope he decides to listen - to get adequate funds for their children's schools. The New Jersey public education system - in many ways, the crown jewel of this state - is now at the mercy of one man, who coincidentally has made war with the teachers union. Something is very wrong here.
As of today, 465 of the over 600 districts in New Jersey have voted to move school elections to November. Why? Because as long as they stay under the 2% tax levy cap, they can count on being able to pass their budgets without worrying about whether the governor decides to take out his anger at teachers by calling for the defeat of local district budgets - just like he did in 2010.
These districts are willing to live under the cap if they can get some guarantee of stability in their funding. As this BOE President in Lacey says:
"It takes the issue of the school budget off of elections, which is the only budget that voters are allowed to vote on in the realm of federal, state, county, municipal and school budgets," Martenak said.
A budget referendum will only be necessary if the board's budget exceeds the 2 percent tax levy cap. The move allows for more planning without the concern of a budget outcome, Martenak said.
This is directly contradictory to the current state aid process, which only serves to further politicize school funding. When the governor - particularly a partisan showboat like Christie - holds the purse strings, you can be sure he'll manipulate the system to his advantage. Why else would he claim to increase education spending by $850 million when what he was really doing was restoring his previous cuts - and then, only after a court order he fought?
Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said the aid changes reflected a move back toward the state's 2008 funding formula: Wealthier districts lost all aid, or huge portions of it, in cuts announced two years ago, so they stood to regain a higher percentage.
"It's not the case that anybody sat around and said, 'Let's send more to wealthy Republican districts and less to poor districts or Democratic districts,'Ÿ" he said.
Yeah, right. Because Chris Christie is such an apolitical guy:
The biggest loser was Camden, the state's poorest city, where aid decreased $5.5 million, to $276 million - a decrease of $394 per student. An Education Department spokesman said Camden lost that aid mostly because it got much more than the funding law calculated was necessary to provide an adequate education for students with its characteristics.
Some districts lost aid due to enrollment declines.
Representatives of suburban schools expressed delight, however.
"It really does look like the governor has recognized the suburbs have been left out of the loop for quite a while in state aid, and they need it," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "It's been a long time coming, but we're glad it's showing up now."
This is not a problem specific to a particular governor; it is a systemic problem. New Jersey's schools need a stable and adequate source of funding, free of the vagaries of politics. Our current system is simply inadequate to the task.
(42:15) In the end of the day, none of this matters, as someone said today, because, whether you have an enlightened despotism or a diffusion of power, at the end of the day it has a great deal to do with who's in charge.
I look at New York City, for example, and mayoral control was the necessary condition for the kind of change that we experienced. It could not have happened without it. And then I look with some horror at the prospect of the next mayor, and I go, "Wow; that could backfire." So, a lot of it has to do with who's in charge.
I've heard some arrogant stuff in my day, but my goodness, that really is one hell of a statement, on several levels:
Doesn't matter if it's Christie or Cuomo or Scott or Walker or Emanuel or Bloomberg or Duncan or even Obama: all reformy politicians got their moves from studying the master himself:
The first to discover that teachers make perfect scapegoats was George W. Bush. When he ran for president for the first time twelve years ago, Bush had a problem. He wanted lower taxes to be his rallying cry, but while taxes in Texas, the state where he was governor, were indeed low, the schools in Texas were notoriously bad.
The numbers are no better today: Texas ranks 47th in the county in literacy, 49th in verbal SAT scores and 46th in math scores. To blind the public to the evidence of what low taxes do, Bush produced evidence of a miracle: When it comes to education money is not what matters, he declared; what matters is holding teachers accountable. In Houston, Bush told voters, the superintendent of schools held teachers accountable, and as a result Houston saw a dramatic improvement in school quality, particularly when measured by high school graduation rates. So convincing was the miracle that as soon as he took office Congress agreed to pass the Bush tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind law.
Eight years later the "Texas miracle" was exposed. It turned out that the numbers had been cooked: Instead of the 1.5% drop-out rate that Houston had reported, the actual rate was somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. And in order to boost test results children who were considered weak in even just one subject were prevented from entering the 10th grade, the year in which the tests were administered. But by then the truth no longer mattered because the ideas that taxes are not needed to run a democratic government and that teachers, not budgets, are responsible for the failure of schools had invaded the body politic. [emphasis mine]
America famously suffers from short-term memory loss, and the image of the idiot cowboy who drove this country (and several others) into a ditch is fading fast. But we can't afford the luxury of forgetting history this time.
Today, I want to hammer this home by putting a human face on the impact and suffering of New Jerseyans due to the heartless, downright cruel and absolutely unnecessary government giveaways to the super duper rich. I'll start in Passaic, where over 200 disabled residents, many elderly and on a very limited fixed income must now pay an annual fee for a handicapped parking space that they were not charged for in years.
"I didn't want to make this tough decision, but we are being forced to at this time," [Mayor Alex D.] Blanco said.
---snip---
"We hate to make these kinds of decisions," Schaer said. "They strike at the quality of life. But with cuts we have gotten coming from Trenton and coming from Washington, we are the last stop."
I'll note that the tax savings from just one person earning $1,000,000 under Christie's proposal would pay for virtually every single handicapped parking fee.
Let's also not forget Christie's massive cuts to public education (as you've read here in great and painful detail), despite NJ consistently having one of the top ranked public school systems year in and year out - or that his cuts were slapped down in court and totaled nearly $1 billion his first year in office - a time when he cut taxes on corporations and on millionaires - two things that have not led to any measurable or direct job growth or economic activity.
Clearly, the disabled, the elderly, the sick, the state's children (and future), public safety and those working class families who use public transportation can stand some more service cuts and increased fees so that Christie's base can get their government handouts and enjoy more luxury cars and vacations.
Acting NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf's hearing before the NJ Senate Judiciary Committee has just been canceled, I am told by a member of the Committee.
The Judiciary Committee has determined that Cerf - widely reported to have moved out of Essex County to the more GOP-friendly location of Somerset County, still lives at the same address in Montclair, where he has lived since 1999.
That move might have removed him from the jurisdiction of Essex Senator Ronald Rice, who has blocked his nomination for months on the basis of questions about his history and financial entanglements in the education reform industry.
But Cerf's hearing is off. The Judiciary Committee has determined he is not in fact a resident of Somerset County. And so, the practice of senatorial courtesy prevails, and Cerf's appointment for the hot seat before Senate Judiciary on Thursday is off.
What tripped him up? Well, it might have been his own interviews. John Schoonejongen recounts an editorial board meeting with Cerf last week, in which he was asked where he lives. The exchange is telling:
While making a point about school consolidation, Cerf said he was using Glen Ridge and Montclair as examples because that's where he lived. Seeking clarification, I asked him specifically where he lived.
"Montclair," the acting commissioner answered.
"Oh," he then said laughing.
"Where are you living again, one more time?" I asked.
"I actually have two residences," he answered. "In fact, I spent last night outside of Rocky Hill (in Montgomery). I'll spend tonight outside of Rocky Hill."
Where does he live? Apparently, the New Jersey Senate thinks he lives in the same place he's lived since 1999.
This Thursday, ACTING NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf will have his long-delayed confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Here are five questions they should force him to answer (really answer, not dance around):
1) What are the exact circumstances of the Edison stock deal Cerf made using money from the Florida teachers pensions, and why did Cerf continue to hold the stock even after he took a job at the NYC DOE?
Cerf put together a sweetheart deal for himself when his old company, Edison Learning, turned into an educational and fiscal disaster on his watch. That deal was paid for with funds from Florida's teachers, over their objections. And Cerf held the stock after he starting working for the NYC Education Department; he divested just before a parents group was going to out him. The investigation into his conflict of interest found he had violated the law, but the report was heavily redacted when it was released to the public.
Cerf needs to come clean, once and for all, about exactly what happened.
2) Why is there so much secrecy and cronyism surrounding the reorganization of Newark's schools?
Cerf's old firm, Global Education Advisers, got a half-a-million dollar fee to engineer a secret report that reorganized Newark's schools (with no community input). The money was provided by a LA billionaire, Eli Broad, who also paid for Cerf to attend his "superintendent's academy," an unaccredited program that teaches school leaders to bring corporate practices to education. Cerf changed his story when confronted about his role in this deal. Reports allege Cerf's family may have been involved. Nearly one-third of the Zuckerberg-Facebook donation already spent has gone to associates of Cerf's. Another associate got Broad money to reorganize the NJ DOE.
The citizens of Newark are left wondering why there are such radical changes in their schools - including a $150 million complex that will house both charter schools and teachers' apartments together - guided by outsiders, with little to no community control.
3) Why is there so little transparency and community involvement in the approval process for charter schools?
4) Why does Cerf insist that the "achievement gap" is evidence for imposing his radical reforms when New Jersey has so many high-performing students and schools?
5) Why does Cerf insist on pushing unproven or disproven reforms on schools that are already among the best in the world?
Even Cerf himself can't deny that New Jersey has many great students and many great schools. Yet he insists on imposing a series of reforms on all of New Jersey's schools - merit pay, the elimination of tenure, expanded charter schools, teacher evaluations through standardized tests - that have not been shown to work.
This makes no sense, and is dangerous: "reforms" like this could harm New Jersey's schools for generations to come.
Contact information for the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee can be found here. Contact them and politely insist that they ask Cerf these five questions.
I'm reading an article in PolitickerNJ, a site that has atrophied and shriveled since it lost Wally Edge, and am once again pulling the hair out of my head.
Darryl Isherwood wrote the following insanity:
As it is currently implemented, the school funding formula is all about taking money from taxpayers to give to "certain taxpayers" to educate their kids. What Giordano objects to is using it for private schools.
Isherwood equates the state providing extra tax dollars to communities where education is more expensive with using tax dollars to pay for private education with no public oversight.
This exhibits a dramatic ignorance of what publicly funded education is about. He's swallowed the right wing idea that it's about taxpayers getting a bang for their buck, and in particular taxpaying parents.
I'll repeat myself: It's not about the taxpaying parents.
As a politician, we always assumed that Chris Christie had to have some hypocrisy in his blood. After all, he promised not to touch teacher's pensions when he was running for Governor and we know how that promise turned out. He also said that he would use his prosecutorial skills to ferret out corruption in New Jersey, but that seems to be off the table as well.
Now comes word that the Governor is four-square behind a referendum on marriage equality in the state, but dead set against citizens voting on whether they want charter schools in their districts. Bob Braun's article this week highlights Christie's double vision, and an equal dose of doublespeak on the legislature's part, with a sharp razor's edge:
The contradiction - hypocrisy? - was set up nicely the other day when Assembly committees acted on the two issues. The Assembly Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, released a gay marriage bill; the Assembly Education Committee, also on a party-line vote, approved a bill allowing local voters to decide whether they want to pay for charter schools in their communities.
In the Judiciary Committee, the Republicans were for referendum and the Democrats were not. In the Education Committee, the opposite was true.
While the panels were meeting, Christie was at a town hall meeting and he repeated his insistence that same-sex marriage go to a referendum. "The fact is, they don't trust the people of New Jersey to decide," he said.
He made the comment at a charter school - and the governor has repeatedly said he would veto any bill allowing referendums on charter schools.
Nicely done, Bob.
But it doesn't stop there. Christie the unalloyed conservative is now trying to recast himself as something of a moderate, figuring, correctly in my view, that the conservative movement will see a massive flame-out this year and recede from the Republican Party leading up to the 2016 election (assuming that Mitt Romney loses in November. Which he will.). This piece by Charles Stile has all the details. By calling for a referendum on marriage equality, Christie doesn't have to veto a bill that would alienate gays. By signing a 10% income tax cut, he can play to the economic conservatives without bankrupting the state. And he can blame the Democratic majority if the plan is shelved.
How is this working out? Not bad according to this poll, but there are problems. Almost half of the respondents think Christie is concerning himself too much with his own political future, so he'll have to run softer and maybe give up the dream of becoming Vice-President under Romney.
And just yesterday, the good guv'nor picked another fight with the New Jersey Education Association over comments NJEA Executive Director Vince Giordano made over the effects of school vouchers on urban public schools. Said Christie:
"As Vince drives out of the palace on State Street in his big luxury car and his $500,000 salary, I'm sure life's really fair for him and if Vince's kids were in a failing school district he could afford to send them to any school in New Jersey that could help them succeed."
Never mind that NJEA headquarters is hardly a palace or what Giordano's salary is. Christie and his family are plenty wealthy, live in a fairly exclusive suburb, and the Governor sends his children to one of the priciest private schools in the state. There's something seriously wrong with calling out someone whose work supports the very teachers that Christie has been vilifying for his entire, um, tenure, in office.
As for the real issue, the evidence shows that both vouchers and charters are not the panacea he claims, but both do take public money out of the school systems that Christie blames for not meeting students' and parents' needs. He's robbing the system, then blaming it for being ineffective.
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