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Bergen County, Education, News » Classes help N.J. students prepare for state graduation exam
Christie provides fresh hope for city schoolkids, Asbury Park Press, November 8, 2009
Don't mess with success: Gov.-elect Chris Christie should catch up on preschool, By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Public school meets needs of disabled students
Sunday, November 08, 2009 STAR-LEDGER
Bergen County, Education, News »
Classes help N.J. students prepare for state graduation exam
By The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk
November 09, 2009, 7:26AM
Special classes are helping marginal students at several North Jersey school districts prepare for the state graduation exam, according to a report by the Record.
The classes do not take students out of regular academic courses, but do replace electives like art and music, according to the report. This program angered critics of standardized tests, who argue students need to be prepared for life after graduation with a wide range of skills, while proponents said the move is necessary for the teenagers to graduate successfully.
Christie provides fresh hope for city schoolkids, Asbury Park Press, November 8, 2009
We were delighted, though hardly surprised, by Gov.-elect Chris Christie's pledge during an appearance in Newark the day after his election victory that improving urban education would rank behind only reducing taxes and government spending as a priority.
During his most recent editorial board appearance at the Press, there was no topic he spoke more passionately about than providing children in the state's cities with a chance to succeed. As aformer prosecutor, he fully understands the social and economic consequences of a failed educational system.
Unlike Gov. Jon Corzine and the New Jersey Education Association, who have insisted that schools in New Jersey and its cities are the envy of the nation, Christie argues improvements in test scores in urban districts aren't coming fast enough, and certainly not commensurate with the billions of dollars that have been poured into city schools — a view shared by growing numbers of community leaders and parents in Newark, Camden and elsewhere.
Christie, like President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, wants to expand the number of charter schools.
He wants to hold teachers and principals accountable for student performance and provide merit pay for those who excel.
He wants to explore new, less-expensive ways to improve school achievement.
Christie wants equal funding for the grossly underfunded charter schools.
He wants to expand the school choice program to allow children who attend failing schools to seek admission to any public school with available space that is willing to accept them.
He wants audits of all school districts in the state, starting with the largest districts first, to rid them of wasteful spending.
And Christie wants school vouchers, tuition tax credits and urban scholarship incentive programs.
Corzine, who wanted nothing to do with an educational reform agenda, portrayed himself as a champion of the urban poor. In truth, he was nothing but a sentinel for the NJEA and its status-quo policies. The NJEA, abetted by Corzine, has been the chief impediment to changes that could result in better teachers, better school environments and better educational options for disadvantaged children.
In an op-ed in the Press earlier this year, Derrell Bradford, deputy director of E3, a school choice group co-founded by Newark Mayor Corey Booker, lambasted Corzine for making exaggerated claims about the successes of the state's public education system, particularly in the cities.
In response to Corzine's boasts about a study that ranked New Jersey public schools in the top five nationally with a B-minus grade, Bradford said, "He does not tell us that the average is a C. He does not tell us we spend 32 percent more per pupil for this nominal distinction.
"He does not address the fact that the average minority high school graduate is four grade levels behind his or her white counterpart, despite receiving the same diploma. The governor avoids saying that the 11,000 to 15,000 students annually — disproportionately minority — who use the SRA (alternate route graduation test) are counted in the state's graduation total. Without them, our graduation rate falls from 1st to 24th. Or that one-third of NJ STARS scholarship recipients, ostensibly our top high school performers, need remediation.
"The governor does not let the parents of minority children in the Abbott districts know that our fourth-grade reading assessment — the promised indicator of Abbott success and urban school reform — can be passed by answering as few as 42 percent of the questions correctly. In Asbury Park, only four out of 196 fourth-graders scored above 70 percent on this test."
There are lots of Derrell Bradfords out there. Many of them are Democratic lawmakers and church and civic leaders in the state's largest cities.
On many issues, Christie and the Democrats will part company.
On education reform, he may have the allies he needs to truly transform education in New Jersey.
Don't mess with success: Gov.-elect Chris Christie should catch up on preschool
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board/The Star-Led...
November 08, 2009, 5:22AM
Good thing. Because these programs, launched under Republican Christie Whitman and built upon by her Democratic successors, represent the single greatest success story Trenton can claim over the last decade.
Today, more than 50,000 kids are in these programs, most of them in the poorest urban districts. Class size is limited to 15, and teachers must be college graduates with special training in the workings of the young mind and how it learns.
This all began with a Supreme Court case brought by the Education Law Center when Whitman was governor. At that time, most kids in the state’s poor school districts arrived in kindergarten with little preparation, and teachers told horror stories of children who could not name the colors or count to 10. The preschools that existed were a mixed bag — from Head Start programs, to public school programs, to informal babysitting programs in church basements with little instruction.
Whitman, and later Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine, were smart enough to build on what existed. They didn’t start from scratch.
They set high standards on teacher qualifications, they found the best curriculums, and they insisted on small classes sizes, which are crucial at that age. They gave the existing private programs time to ramp up, and offered scholarships and other help to get them there.
Where no private programs were in place, they started new ones in the public system, with the same high standards.
The results of this effort are in. The children graduating from these programs are now in elementary school, and their scores on fourth grade reading and math tests have risen substantially. This is a key reason why the racial achievement gap in New Jersey is closing faster than in any other state. That’s reason for this state to be proud.
Christie is surely correct, however, that we cannot afford to expand these programs now. Corzine had drawn up plans to do so, to ensure that all low-income children were enrolled, no matter where they lived. That remains an important goal. But we’re broke. So it has to wait.
To undercut the existing program, though, would be a tragic mistake. This isn’t glorified babysitting. This is high-quality schooling that gives us the best possible bang for our education buck. It defies the myth that spending on urban education has produced no results.
The governor-elect is a decade behind the times. Let’s hope he catches up to reality before he submits his first budget.
Public school meets needs of disabled students
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Karen Keller
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
A new public special-education school in Sayreville costs less than the average private special education school statewide, and is among the top 20 "greenest" schools in the nation.
The Center for Lifelong Learning, opened in September by the Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission, teaches 153 students from Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth, Somerset and Hunterdon Counties, ages 3 to 21. Nearly two-thirds of students have been diagnosed with autism. The remaining youth are multiply disabled.
school's tuition costs $32,000 a year, compared with $48,399 for the average private special education school statewide for the 2007-08 academic year, according to data provided by the state Department of Education. The average tuition for Middlesex County's six private special education schools last year was $49,272.
Private school tuition includes costs such as building leases and employee pensions, expenses not included in public school tuition rates, said Rich Vespucci, spokesman for the Department of Education.
A public schools advocate applauded the new school as cost-effective.
"When you have students with autism or other types of disabilities, it is much more cost-effective to provide (education) on a regionalized basis like this," said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. "Our belief is that money to be saved is much more effective by shared services, not simply by merging school districts."
The Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission operates five other special-education schools in the county. In New Jersey, 10 of the state's 22 counties have regional educational commissions, the first of which was created in Union County in 1969.
In addition to reduced costs, the Sayreville school is a model for energy-efficiency.
The Cheesequake Road facility was ranked 18th among the top 20 "greenest" schools in the nation, according to a list released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in early October. The Center for Lifelong Learning takes second place in New Jersey after the private all-girls Kent Place School in Summit.
Eco-design features include the following: More than a third of building materials came from within 500 miles of the school; rainwater is collected and used to water plants outside and refill the swimming pools; the building runs partly on solar energy; there's a greenhouse for students to grow vegetables; and preferred parking places are provided for hybrid vehicles.
