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Associated Press ‘N.J. Assembly panel to weigh offering vouchers for students in failing public schools’
Njspotlight.com ‘Feelings Run High as Opportunity Scholarship Act Moves to the Assembly’
Star Ledger editorial ‘Cap teacher salary hikes in New Jersey’
Associated Press ‘N.J. Assembly panel to weigh offering vouchers for students in failing public schools’
Njspotlight.com ‘Feelings Run High as Opportunity Scholarship Act Moves to the Assembly’
Star Ledger editorial ‘Cap teacher salary hikes in New Jersey’
Associated Press ‘N.J. Assembly panel to weigh offering vouchers for students in failing public schools’
Published: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 6:11 AM Updated: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 6:14 AM
TRENTON — An Assembly panel today is set to debate a startup school choice program that would allow some children in 166 failing public schools in New Jersey to transfer elsewhere.
The Opportunity Scholarship Act grants tax credits to businesses that make contributions to education scholarships. Students in 13 failing districts would apply for scholarship vouchers to offset the costs of attending private or parochial school.
A Senate committee advanced the measure last month with bipartisan support.
The Assembly version also is co-sponsored by Democrats and Republicans.
Gov. Chris Christie strongly supports the measure. Expanding school choice and increasing the number of charter schools are centerpieces of the governor's education agenda.
Njspotlight.com ‘Feelings Run High as Opportunity Scholarship Act Moves to the Assembly’
Anathema to the teachers union, New Jersey's first voucher program is starting to draw support from Democrats.
By John Mooney, February 3 in Education |1 Comment
The Opportunity Scholarship Act -- New Jersey’s version of a private school voucher bill -- is moving to the Assembly today, and the politicking from all sides is going full bore.
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Ads opposing the measure went up from the teachers union this week. Ads returning fire from a school choice advocacy group were in the newspapers yesterday.
At stake is New Jersey's first voucher program, a proposal that would provide up to $11,000 per child to attend a school of his or her choice.
Pushed by Gov. Chris Christie and gaining Democratic allies one by one, the bill at this rate could come up for final vote this spring. It would furnish vouchers -- or "scholarships" -- to low-income students coming out of targeted schools with consistently low student achievement.
The scholarships would be funded by corporate contributions that would earn matching tax credits.
For and Against
"In my years as a legislator, this is one of the bills that has gotten the most reaction," said Assemblyman Al Coutinho (D-Essex), the chairman of the commerce and economic development committee that will hear the bill today.
Coutinho said his Newark district office has been inundated with calls and emails, about evenly split for and against.
He stressed yesterday that his committee is considering the original bill filed in the Assembly last year, not the one endorsed by the Senate budget committee last week.
Under the Assembly version, the program would serve about 20,000 students after four years and cost the state an estimated $360 million, Coutinho said.
The Senate version, including several amendments, would be limited to 13 pilot districts but serve twice as many students. One legislative staff analysis put the pricetag as high as $1 billion.
"That is too much money and too many scholarships,” Coutinho said. "Forty thousands kids, that’s not a pilot."
The assemblyman also stressed even with his committee’s backing, the program still will require an endorsement from Assembly leadership that so far has balked at the measure. “I know there is still significant opposition,” he said.
Coutinho added that he would only want to see this proposal pass in the context of other commitments by Republicans, including stable funding for preschools and school construction in urban districts.
“There is no doubt a crisis in urban education, and we need to be looking at all the options,” he said. “There’s a lot sitting on the table."
A Watershed Moment
The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) is understandably nervous, as it watches the bill it has fought for years move further than it ever has. "This is a watershed moment," said Steve Wollmer, the NJEA’s communication director.
The union has run print and broadcast ads in the last week, as well as pressed its cause through the Internet over its own and other websites, each with tens of thousands of readers.
"It’s generating a lot of heat, and our members are taking it very seriously," Wollmer said.
"We’ll have to see where this goes. It is moving, no question," he said. "But it’s whether it is moving enough to become law."
And that has emboldened the advocates for the measure, led by the Newark-based Excellent Education for Everyone group (E3) and Catholic and other religious school leaders.
Causing its own stir, E3 ran print ads yesterday in large state newspapers, including one that includes a picture of a black student below a bold headline and text.
"My school is failing me!" the ad began. "I go to one of the worst schools in New Jersey. There are 80,000 kids just like me. The New Jersey Education Association wants to me to stay here. Will you help me get out?"
Said Derrell Bradford, executive director of E3: “We knew the NJEA was going to come out swinging, so we had to swing back.”
And he thinks it is having its own impact, with a group of parents and students expected to testify today. Bradford said it has caught the attention of the other side as well, with quite a few angry phone calls coming into his office as well.
“If only they got as upset about their schools,” Bradford said.
Star Ledger editorial ‘Cap teacher salary hikes in New Jersey’ Editorial backs Last Best Offer
Published: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 5:54 AM
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
over capping pay increases for cops and firefighters, the idea of putting the brakes on teacher salaries has somehow faded from the discussion.
Time to bring it back. Because the 2 percent cap on property tax increases is now a matter of law. If salaries are not contained as well, schools will have to lay off more and more teachers to fit their budgets within the tax cap.
And remember, schools can’t keep the best teachers. They have to fire the young ones, no matter how promising, thanks to archaic seniority rules. That will magnify the damage to kids in the classroom, in poor districts and rich ones.
Gov. Chris Christie wants to change all this. But so far, he hasn’t managed to break the stranglehold that the teachers union has over the Democratic Legislature. He wins the battle on YouTube every time, but the New Jersey Education Association is still winning in the Statehouse.
The NJEA in September beat back Christie’s first shot, a bill that would have imposed a 2 percent cap on salary hikes.
Even local school officials didn’t like that approach because it would limit their flexibility. They might want to grant a 3 percent pay hike, they said, in return for concessions on benefits or work rules.
Now, the Legislature is considering Plan B. It would allow school boards to impose final settlements on teachers once the negotiations have passed through an obstacle course of mediation attempts.
School boards had this power until 2003, when the rules changed after a teachers strike in Middletown. The hope was that this would bring labor peace, which it did.
But at a price. Soon afterward, teacher salaries began to rise faster.
Teachers argue they are not overpaid, given the average salary of $63,000. And that’s true, especially given their level of education. This is not about bashing teachers. It is a simple matter of what property taxpayers can afford today.
New Jersey teachers are among the best paid in the nation. Many of them earn more during their summers off. And their benefits are extraordinarily generous, across the board. Limiting salary increases is not unreasonable.
Teachers also argue that giving this power to school boards renders collective bargaining meaningless. But they have abandoned collective bargaining when it suits their interest, as when they helped convince the Legislature to grant them a 9 percent pension hike a decade ago.
It is true that giving school boards this power could result in more teacher strikes. Our hope is that school boards use this power with restraint, only after bargaining in good faith.
But the teachers union, by rejecting the call for a pay freeze and clinging hard to sclerotic work rules that block needed reform, has shown its colors. Time to tip the balance of power and give school boards the power to push back.
