Quality Public Education for All New Jersey Students

 

 
     GSCS Statement Condemning Violence Motivated by Race, Ethnicity or Sexual Orientation
     Latest Testimonies and Letters
     Virtual and In-Person Meeting Calendar for 2023-2024
     GSCS Critical Issues
     3-29-24 Education in the News
     3-28-24 Education in the News
     3-27-24 Education in the News
     3-26-24 Education in the News
     3-25-24 Education in the News
     3-22-24 Education in the News
     3-21-24 Education in the News
     3-20-24 Education in the News
     3-19-24 Education in the News
     3-18-24 Education in the News
     3-15-24 Education in the News
     3-14-24 Education in the News
     3-12-24 Education in the News
     3-11-24 Education in the News
     3-8-24 Education in the News
     3-7-24 Educaiton in the News
     3-6-24 Education in the News
     3-5-24 Education in the News
     3-4-24 Education in the News
     3-1-24 Education in the News
     2-29-24 Educaiton in the News
     2-28-24 Education in the News
     2-27-24 Education in the News
     2-26-24 Education in the News
     2-23-24 Education in the News
     2-22-24 Education in the News
     2-21-24 Education in the News
     2-20-24 Education in the News
     2-19-24 Education in the News
     2-16-24 Education in the News
     2-15-24 Education in the News
     2-14-24 Education in the News
     2-13-24 Education in the News
     2-12-24 Education in the News
     2-9-24 Education in the News
     2-8-24 Education in the News
     2-7-24 Education in the News
     2-6-24 Education in the News
     2-5-24 Education in the news
     2-2-24 Education in the News
     2-1-24 Education in the News
     1-31-24 Education in the News
     1-30-24 Education in the News
     1-29-24 Education in the News
     1-26-24 Education in the News
     1-25-24 Education in the News
     1-24-24 Education in the News
     1-23-24 Education in the News
     1-22-24 Education in the News
     1-19-24 Education in the News
     1-18-24 Education in the News
     1-17-24 Education in the News
     1-16-24 Education in the News
     1-12-24 Education in the News
     1-11-24 Education in the News
     1-10-23 Education in the News
     1-9-24 Education in the News
     1-8-24 Education in the News
     1-5-24 Education in the News
     1-4-24 Education in the News
     1-3-23 Education in the News
     1-2-24 Education in the News
     2023-2024 Announcement Archive
     Older Archives
1-29-13 Education Issues in the News
Star Ledger - Education commissioner, Senate committee spar on school funding

NJ Spotlight - Cerf's Visit to Education Committee Raises Question About Budget Balance of Power…Committee member: why wrangle over state school aid if lawmakers can't affect final numbers?

Montclair Times,The Record - Montclair district conducting budget review

Star Ledger - Education commissioner, Senate committee spar on school funding

By Jeanette Rundquist/The Star-LedgerThe Star-Ledger
on January 28, 2013 at 7:52 PM, updated January 28, 2013 at 10:04 PM

View/Post Comments

 

TRENTON — Testifying before the Senate Education Committee for the first time since he was confirmed as education commissioner, Christopher Cerf today defended proposed school funding changes that critics say could mean less aid for disadvantaged students.

Cerf said the state already spends far more per-pupil than most other states, including for low-income students.

"Money matters. Nobody's going to go to the extreme position that outcome is indifferent to funding," he said. "But it takes more than money to provide an effective education."

A number of education issues were on the agenda when Cerf appeared before the committee: The ongoing plan for new teacher evaluations; a proposal for an alternate certification pathway for teachers in charter schools; and discussion of school security measures, in the wake of the tragic school shootings in Newtown, Conn.

But one of the first things Education Committee Chairwoman Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) asked about was the governor's Educational Adequacy Report, a proposal that would adjust the state's school funding formula to give less extra aid to districts with high numbers of low-income and limited-English-speaking students. Both the Senate and Assembly budget committees have adopted resolutions objecting to the report. If both houses adopt the objection, it could send the report back to Cerf to revise.

"I've never been an (advocate) of more money equals a better outcome. But resources invested properly can turn around a school district," Ruiz said.

The Educational Adequacy Report recommends adjustments to the state’s school funding formula. While the proposal would increase the base amount of dollars given for each pupil, it would decrease the "weight" that would allot extra aid for low-income and limited-English students, which could in theory mean less money for urban districts.

Funding for the current school year was based on similar recommendations, but the governor’s report calls for making those adjustments on a long-term basis.

The plan would also affect special education. While it would keep the same pot of money available for "extraordinary" special education aid, it would reduce the number of students who receive those funds by raising the threshold above which districts get extraordinary aid.

The changes could ultimately be reflected in the coming year's budget.

Estimates vary on what the effects of the adequacy report would be: Some say low and bilingual students could drop a collective $160 million under the recommendations.

Cerf called such estimates "wild allegations," however. He said the changes in weight would have "zero impact" on Newark next year, for example.

A small crowd of education advocates and others attended the hearing. Ruiz said afterward she has heard from many districts who are concerned they will be impacted, and said she may have a meeting for those districts.

"I'm still concerned," she said after the hearing.

Follow @ JRundquistSL

 

NJ Spotlight - Cerf's Visit to Education Committee Raises Question About Budget Balance of Power…Committee member: why wrangle over state school aid if lawmakers can't affect final numbers?

By John Mooney, January 29, 2013 in Education|Post a Comment

The Christie administration and Senate Democrats continued their tug of war over the details of state aid to schools yesterday. But it took a Republican to raise an important question as to how much say the Legislature will have in the distribution of the final amount for next year.

Related Links

State Education Commissioner Chris Cerf testified for the first time yesterday before the Senate Education Committee, with much of his visit taken up defending the administration’s latest proposal in his Education Adequacy Report for adjusting some weights in the state’s school-funding formula.

In more than two hours of testimony, Cerf said that the state remained among the most generous in funding for public education, and his changes would only make what he called “exceedingly modest” reductions in the extra amounts that districts with high poverty would receive for their students.

“The notion that we are doing this on the cheap for at-risk kids, I find that extremely hard to take,” Cerf said.

Cerf brought up a familiar argument concerning Camden schools, a district that he said spends over $22,000 per student while seeing 23 of its 26 schools in the bottom 5 percent in terms of student performance.

“Is there anyone who really believes if we gave Camden more money, it would change the education outcomes?” he asked.

But all minds were on Gov. Chris Christie’s budget for fiscal 2014 -- still a month away -- and the breakdown of state aid for each district.

And while Democrats picked at Cerf’s testimony -- and a formal resolution rejecting the report remains pending in the Senate -- it was one of the Legislature’s most conservative members who complained that it didn’t matter much given that the administration’s aid assignments typically stand no matter what the Legislature says, good or bad.

“It should be the Legislature driving the train here, and we have let our authority be taken away from us,” said state Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Warren).

Doherty for years has openly proposed that state aid be evenly distributed across all districts, eliminating any extra weight for the state’s poorest districts, which fall under the Abbott v. Burke school equity hearing. The proposal has yet to gain much, if any, traction.

Even so, Doherty he raised the point that the timing of the budget release in late February leaves the Legislature little time to do much of anything with the aid figures, with local districts having just a few days afterward to set their budgets for the next year.

“We do we have the timeline totally fouled up?” Doherty asked. “Before we pass the final budget, the horse is out of the barn for all the towns.”

That has not necessarily always been the case. The Legislature has in the past added money to help certain districts, and two years ago, the state Supreme Court ordered close to $500 million be added for the Abbott districts. And it was the Legislature that enacted the state’s school-funding law to start with.

But Doherty is right that once the actual numbers come out each year, the prospect of significant changes are at best rare. Last year was a perfect example, where the legislative Democrats rejected the administration’s budget that made many of Cerf’s formula adjustments, but still approved the final figured determined by that budget.

“The time was such that we didn’t have much of a choice,” said state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Ruiz said maybe a solution would be a process in which budget deliberations start earlier or even look a year ahead, but she said that poses its own challenges. “What you are raising is something we should probably address globally in terms of the timing with school districts,” she told Doherty.

This year provides a little more leverage for lawmakers, since the Legislature does have the authority to reject the Education Adequacy Report that is issued every three years under the School Funding Reform Act. But the Senate resolution passed in committee two weeks ago is still waiting vote of the full Senate.

Nonetheless, Ruiz vowed that the debate will not die with the budget presentation and the release of state aid numbers. “I will do everything in my power to have that conversation by the end of this year,” she said.

 

Montclair Times, The Record - Montclair district conducting budget review

BY GEORGE WIRT STAFF WRITER The Montclair Times

The Montclair School District said it is conducting an exhaustive budget review before releasing its proposed spending plan for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year.

Schools Superintendent Penny MacCormack disclosed that she has been meeting with top school administrators for a "line-by-line" review of school expenses focusing on the district's central office departments.

MacCormack said the "zero-based budgeting" she is employing is more involved than the routine budget process the district has used, but it provides an opportunity to make sure that the district's resources are being used in the most effective manner.

"It's based on need," MacCormack told The Montclair Times.

Instead of just being asked to justify any increases to their existing budget requests, under zero-based budgeting administrators are required to re-evaluate their entire budget starting from zero. She said the zero-based concept could be expanded to all of the district's departments next year.

According to board member Deborah Wilson, the zero-based approach was last used by the district two years ago.

"We requested a second submission from the superintendent for the sole purpose of doing zero-base," Wilson explained. "Zero-based allows us to review all of the programs and make sure that they are working in order to keep their funding."

The district, which is currently operating under a $114.2 million school budget, is in the midst of preparing a budget for the school year that begins July 1.

MacCormack said she expects to have the draft of a budget proposal ready for the board's preliminary review by the end of February. The district faces an early April deadline for adopting a new budget.

In recent years, the district has faced serious budget challenges as the state reduced its school aid funding to Montclair and other districts, and as the township's elected officials urged the district to help hold the line property tax increases.

While the state school aid situation has been stabilized, the district is negotiating a new multi-year labor agreement with the Montclair Education Association which represents the more than 1,000 teachers, teacher aides and school staff who work in Montclair's 11 public schools.

Board of Education President Robin Kulwin confirmed that contract talks between the district and the MEA are under way.

"Both sides are serious and working hard," Kulwin said. "We are at the table, and as soon as we can talk about it, we will."

As the budget deadline get closer, the board is likely to feel pressure from several quarters to increase school services. At its public meeting Monday night; the board heard at least one proposal to increase school security, heard from a parents group that would like to see the district set up a new Spanish language immersion program and got a plea from Ira Shor to provide a fair contract settlement for its teachers.

Tanya Coke urged her fellow board of education members to proceed with caution in considering any changes in school security in the wake of the tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

"There are some school districts that have done some things that frankly I would consider reactionary," Coke said. "Hiring armed guards, asking their teachers to undergo gun training, arming their janitors, that sort of thing."

Coke read an excerpt from a recent article on school security written by school violence prevention experts.

"Their statement says that schools are still some of the safest places in America despite the tragedy in Newtown and Columbine and places before it," Coke said.

"The truth is that only 2 percent of homicides of children occur anywhere near in school grounds, and that, in fact, our schools, sad to say, are actually safer that many children's homes," she noted.

Coke said the district is working with its security consultants "to review our procedures and to insure that our schools are indeed as safe as they can possibly be."

The board also approved a proposal made by its District Evaluation Advisory Committee (DEAC) to adopt the Marshall teacher and principal evaluation rubrics as its standard for evaluating the performance of Montclair's pubic school teachers.

In accepting the Marshall system, the district is complying with the newly enacted Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act which requires the state's more than 600 districts to increase measurable achievement for all students by ensuring that every student in New Jersey has access to a highly effective teacher.

Under TEACHNJ, districts have to create a structure in which its teachers and principals receive timely, meaningful feedback and professional development to continually improve their practice.

"These rubrics should result in unprecedented clarity in feedback to teachers and principals," MacCormack said.

She explained that the Marshall system will allow the district to "improve our ability to suggest targeted professional development that will have the greatest impact on student achievement."

Contact George Wirt at wirt@northjersey.com