Quality Public Education for All New Jersey Students

 

6-28-17 Education in the News

Star Ledger--Should you legislate how kids talk to police? N.J. wants to

TRENTON --  A bill that would require Garden State school districts to instruct students how to safely interact with law enforcement has cleared the Assembly unanimously.

On Monday, the lower house of the Legislature passed by a vote of 76-0 A1114, a bill creating a social studies curriculum starting in kindergarten and running through grade 12 about student's rights and responsibilities when interacting with police.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/06/can_you_legislate_how_kids_talk_to_police_nj_wants.html#incart_river_index

Claude Brodesser-Akner| Updated on June 27, 2017 at 2:06 PM Posted on June 27, 2017 at 11:16 AM

 

The Record--N.J. Democrats' $34.7B budget proposal comes with risks

As part of their $34.7 billion spending plan introduced Monday night, Democrats hope to spend some $350 million on top of the budget Gov. Chris Christie proposed in February to give to schools, scholarships and other priorities.

That plan, however, relies on revenue assumptions that have proved overly ambitious in five of the past seven years and would draw down the state’s surplus — a cushion built into the budget should anything go wrong — to a level lawmakers from both parties consider uncomfortably low.

All the while, New Jersey is facing a gaping structural budget deficit fueled by ballooning pension costs that will only get worse at the start of 2018, when the next round of Christie-backed tax cuts phases in, according to an analysis released last month by Moody's Investors Service.

http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2017/06/27/nj-democrats-34-7-b-budget-proposal-comes-risks/433555001/

Nicholas Pugliese , State House Bureau, @nickpugz Published 7:34 p.m. ET June 27, 2017 | Updated 5 hours ago

 

Press of Atlantic City--Revised state budget still cuts aid to many local schools.

TRENTON — A revised state budget heading to the state Legislature on Thursday still districts, but takes includes more money for underfunded school less money from those considered overfunded.

The latest compromise approved by both the state Senate and Assembly budget committees late Monday allocates an extra $100 million for underfunded districts. But it reduces from $46 million to $31 million the amount of adjustment aid to be taken from districts considered overfunded by the state formula and distributed to underfunded districts.

Under the new revised 2017-18 plan, overfunded districts would lose no more than 1 percent of their total budget in state aid, down from 1.5 percent.

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, was one of four senators on the Budget Committee to vote against the budget. Van Drew said he worked to improve the budget, but the cuts to his school districts were still too great for him to support.

“We still take the worst hit in the state,” Van Drew said in a text. School districts in his legislative district would lose $4 million, down from $6 million in the original proposal.

Thirteen of 18 districts in Cape May County would lose state aid, as would Vineland and Millville.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/education/revised-state-budget-still-cuts-aid-to-many-local-schools/article_f37ab969-75b1-570c-8ef7-0fc28da50522.html

DIANE D’AMICO Staff Writer | June 28, 2017

Education Week--Supreme Court Issues Narrow Ruling in Case With Voucher Implications

The state of Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution's free exercise of religion clause when it denied a church a grant to use shredded scrap-tire material to improve its preschool playground, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision Monday.

The case of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo. v. Comer (No. 15-577) has been closely followed by groups on both sides of the school choice debate.

The court, however, decided the case on relatively narrow grounds that left the implications for state barriers to religious school vouchers and other school choice measures unclear.

The farther-reaching question underlying the case was whether state constitutional provisions that strictly bar government aid to religion violate religious freedom protections in the First Amendment. Those state-level measures are considered among the last legal barriers to expanding vouchers and tax credits for use at private religious schools.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2017/06/supreme_court_sides_with_churc.html?_ga=2.171179554.321718431.1498564816-503518935.1451996967

By Evie Blad on June 26, 2017 10:46 AM|  [Updated Tuesday 7:35 a.m.]