Conversation with the Commissioner in Atlantic City
The Wednesday Open Meeting sponsored by GSCS in Atlantic City was attended by over 100 and held attendees attention until after 6 pm. The Commissioner and the crowd had an direct, interactive, open and often specific exchange for about 1 and 1/2 hours. Topics ranged from preschool and high school redesign implementation problems, to negotiations stand-stills & related inflexibility with fact finding and arbitration, to sense of inaccessibility of board members to find effective measures of communication with Trenton, to growing tensions between the administration and school administrators to work together on school issues in a ways conducive to produce positive, workable results. It is notable that the Department of Education has clarified that preschool implementation has room for more flexibility than there appeared to be in initial D.O.E. communications.

The Commissioner suggested - and GSCS agreed - that GSCS plan several more open 'Conversations with the Commissioner' around the state this year. GSCS will try to tie these meetings into its calendar for regional membership meetings. GSCS also intends to follow up with the Commissioner on certain specific recommendations that emerged during Wednesday's meeting. Stay tuned...
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PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY

Corzine says funding shortage could delay preschool reform

(Published: Thursday, October 30, 2008)

ATLANTIC CITY - Public preschool will expand in New Jersey, but maybe not quite as quickly as planned.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine told a packed audience at the New Jersey School Boards Conference at the Atlantic City Convention Center on Wednesday that he remains committed to education and to expanding public preschool to all low-income children.

But, he admitted, the current state of the economy could slow the process.

"There is some consternation about the timing," he said. "That will be reviewed. But not the commitment. A recession should not have us backing away from our future."

Corzine was clearly conflicted about future school funding and said it would depend on the seriousness of the state deficit.

"One of the last and least likely places for heavy cuts is education," he said.

But he also said that does not mean there would be no cuts or freezes, just that education would be the last to go.

A member of the audience asked about starting a special lottery or offering video poker with the proceeds funding education. Corzine said the state already has a lottery and casino gaming, and that adding another venue wouldn't raise the type of revenue needed. He did say he would support adding sports betting in Atlantic City.

As he left, Corzine prepped Education Commissioner Lucille Davy for a meeting hosted by the Garden State Coalition of Schools, saying she should emphasize that education standards are being raised to get better student performance and keep New Jersey students competitive in the world.

"Don't let them back you into a corner," he said.

They tried, but Davy stood her ground. She was surrounded on her way to the meeting by a small group of school board members livid about voluminous new accountability regulations that even control how much, if anything, they can spend on lunch for a teachers' workshop.

Davy said they are reviewing how the regulations are working but said she does not write the laws, Legislators do, and they are responding to public pressure to cut costs.

"Do you think I want to be reviewing regulations about buying water and lunch?" she asked. "But taxpayers are saying they can't afford to live here anymore. Legislators don't get up in the morning and think what can we do to wreak havoc on schools. They are hearing this from taxpayers."

That theme continued at the Garden State Coalition meeting. The state last week sent out a letter saying districts do not have to begin full-day preschool in 2009-10, or can begin smaller than the recommended 20 percent of eligible students, if they have a good reason, such as limited preschool options. Davy said she is disappointed that some districts seem resistant to the expansion when the state is paying for it.

"We understand it may take time," she said. "But we should embrace preschool."

Asked about tension between superintendents and the DOE, Davy said she believes there are some misunderstandings and also disagreement about raising state graduation standards.

"It's not about whether we can," she said. "We must. The question is how, and we do have to deliver the education in more than one way."

She said new regulations that require the state to review superintendent contracts and limit retirement pay are the result of problems in a few districts that were serious enough get the public's attention.

"It's not my fault," she said. "It's your colleagues who have taken advantage of the system. When there is a retirement package that makes people embarrassed, then it becomes a public issue."

E-mail Diane D'Amico:

DDamico@pressofac.com

Budget troubles endanger $350M preschool plan

Delaying expansion of programs would be last resort, Corzine says

Thursday, October 30, 2008

BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL

Star-Ledger Staff

Mounting state budget troubles may force New Jersey to delay plans for a $350 million expansion of public preschool programs, but such a move would be a last resort, Gov. Jon Corzine told a convention of school board members yesterday.

"We're going to fight to hold our education funding," Corzine told about 500 delegates at the New Jersey School Boards Association's annual workshop in Atlantic City. "That doesn't mean there won't be any cuts. That doesn't mean there won't be any freezes. But it means it will be the last thing on the table."

Corzine is grappling with a revenue shortfall of at least $400 million in the current state budget and a hole of up to $4 billion in the spending plan he will present to lawmakers in March. He acknowledged that has led to concern that the state will defer providing $50 million next year to begin expanding preschool to communities with high concentrations of needy students.

"I know there's some consternation the timing of this initiative will be delayed, but certainly not the commitment," he said. Asked by reporters if he was suggesting the preschool initiative would be postponed, Corzine said: "We'll look at it. It's not a big budget item next year."

Part of the new school funding formula enacted last year, Corzine's plan would be the state's biggest expansion of preschool for low-income students since the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke rulings, which ordered universal pre-kindergarten in 31 of the poorest districts.

The plan would take the court rulings a step further and order similar preschool for all low-income students, wherever they live. Depending on the numbers, districts would be required to establish the preschool themselves or contract with outside centers to provide the service for eligible students. The state would pay the tab and estimated 17,000 more students would be served as the program is phased in over six years at an eventual cost of $350 million.

Jerry Tarnoff, superintendent of West Orange schools, said he was encouraged that Corzine suggested the preschool funding would only be cut as a last resort. "I am pleased he would like to commit to full funding," said Tarnoff. "Anything less, if the program were to go forward, would make it extremely difficult for the local taxpayers."

Sharon Dey, a member of the Jackson Township school board, was less enthused after hearing state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy discuss the preschool program at a seminar [GSCS meeting "Conversation with the Commissioner"] that followed Corzine's speech.

"I have no confidence," she said. "I think the state is going to do a shell game." If preschool is funded next year, Dey said, she fears the state will cut other aid to balance the books.

Earlier yesterday, Corzine was in Washington urging Congress to include investment in construction projects like the planned new Hudson River train tunnel as part of a new economic stimulus package.

Corzine testified at a hearing by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which is considering tens of billions of dollars for highway, water and sewer projects and modernization of schools and public housing.

"Unfunded projects and plans are in place, ready to do," Corzine said in his prepared testimony. "Let's put people to work, build roads, bridges, tunnels, schools, wastewater treatment systems -- even a 21st-century commitment to build alternative energy capacity and implement carbon abatement policies."

He said building a second mass-transit tunnel under the Hudson is the kind of project that would put people to work and have long-range benefits.

Staff writer John Mooney contributed to this report.