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Northjersey.com - Teachers, kids in two districts shine for state education boss
Philadelphia Inquirer - Christie fields town-hall queries on budget, as treasurer tangles with lawmakers at hearing “…But, Brown wondered, what about a recent report, commissioned by the state Supreme Court, that found last year's aid cuts to students unconstitutional? If the court orders more money to go back to poor, at-risk districts, Brown reasoned, then the governor would have to take away funds from suburban districts like his… "You put your finger on the defining issue of affordability in New Jersey," Christie said. In his most expansive remarks on the issue, Christie vowed to challenge the advisory report in the Supreme Court to keep his school-funding formula intact. Otherwise, he speculated, he would have to cut all funding to hospitals, forcing some to close, and to cut all state aid for towns, driving up property taxes…”
Njspotlight.com - Budget Spotlight: Hackettstown and Newark, and, In His Own Words: Judge Doyne and his Evidentiary Opinion
The Record - Opinion: Looking back at start of school-funding fight
Northjersey.com - Teachers, kids in two districts shine for state education boss
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
BY DENISA R. SUPERVILLE
The Record
STAFF WRITER
CLOSTER — Acting Commissioner of Education Christopher Cerf donned 3-D glasses to view a third-grade art project at Hillside Elementary School, sat through a SMART board demonstration on creating poems and listened to the Tenakill Middle School band perform in a visit to the Closter school district on Tuesday.
Cerf was invited to the district by Superintendent Joanne Newberry, who had heard him speak at Bergen Community College in February.
"I told him if he wanted to see excellence in education, let me know," Newberry said this week, paraphrasing the e-mail she sent to the acting commissioner.
Cerf, who was nominated in December and is awaiting confirmation, accepted the invitation. He also stopped by the Tenafly school district on Tuesday.
The visit started at Hillside Elementary School, where Cerf watched elementary students put together the school's daily newscast. He also sat through a portion of a third-grade science class on how sound travels.
He was greeted at the middle school's entrance by the Student Council president and vice president. He listened to the band perform John Philip Sousa's "Semper Fidelis" and Robert W. Smith's "Encanto" before heading off to a math class. He also visited the school's annual art exhibit across the street at the Belskie Museum.
Newberry said this is the first time that she is aware of that an education commissioner — or acting education commissioner — had visited the district.
Cerf said he was impressed by what he saw: engaged students and creative teachers.
"You guys were great. That was so impressive," he told students who produced the newscast, a daily show that on Tuesday featured two bilingual puppets teaching Spanish words for animals, a sign-language lesson and an interview with a teacher.
He questioned teachers whether they had designed their curriculum.
'"I have this view that great teachers are craftsmen and women," he said. "It's a real gift to do it. It's not rote."
He also appeared particularly interested in the Northern Valley Schools Curriculum Center.
The center, which is based in Demarest and has been in existence for more than 25 years, provides professional development for the seven Northern Valley towns that send students to the Northern Valley Regional High School and for the district's two high schools, said Robert Price, the center's director of curriculum and instruction. The center also develops the curriculum for the seven towns.
Other municipalities also send teachers to the center for professional development, Price said.
Having one director of curriculum instruction for all the schools means that the districts are able to streamline instruction at the lower schools. Students have similar experiences, and teachers across the Northern Valley share teaching strategy and technology, Price said.
Cerf said he liked the idea.
Later in the afternoon, Cerf toured Tenafly High School, one of the highest-achieving districts in North Jersey. He expressed admiration as students read him their poems, showed off a robotic Lego car steered wirelessly by a computer program and performed a string-instruments concert.
Cerf asked teachers along the way how they used technology and how they were adapting to changing curriculum standards.
When math teacher Shane Johnson displayed the power of free software called Winplot, made available by a teacher at the private Phillips Exeter Academy, Cerf asked what could be done to help teachers share their best tips more easily.
"If you set aside time for teachers to convene more formally, this sharing is bound to happen," Johnson said.
Staff Writer Leslie Brody contributed to this article. E-mail: superville@northjersey.com
Philadelphia Inquirer - Christie fields town-hall queries on budget, as treasurer tangles with lawmakers at hearing
But, Brown wondered, what about a recent report, commissioned by the state Supreme Court, that found last year's aid cuts to students unconstitutional? If the court orders more money to go back to poor, at-risk districts, Brown reasoned, then the governor would have to take away funds from suburban districts like his…"You put your finger on the defining issue of affordability in New Jersey," Christie said.
In his most expansive remarks on the issue, Christie vowed to challenge the advisory report in the Supreme Court to keep his school-funding formula intact. Otherwise, he speculated, he would have to cut all funding to hospitals, forcing some to close, and to cut all state aid for towns, driving up property taxes.
By Matt Katz and Maya Rao
Inquirer Trenton Bureau March 30 2011
HAMMONTON, N.J. - When the governor called on the "guy with gray hair and a mustache," and the man announced himself as a school superintendent in Stratford, a murmur went through the crowd.
Was another of Gov. Christie's famous fights with educators brewing at this town-hall meeting Tuesday in rural New Jersey?
Nope.
"First, I want to say we very much appreciate that you increased school state aid this year," Superintendent Albert K. Brown said.
Stratford, a Camden County district that gets about half of its $10 million budget from the state, saw a 2 percent increase in aid this year, and Brown said the additional money would help him avoid raising taxes. After cutting $820 million in state education funding last year, Christie is proposing to restore $250 million for next school year.
But, Brown wondered, what about a recent report, commissioned by the state Supreme Court, that found last year's aid cuts to students unconstitutional? If the court orders more money to go back to poor, at-risk districts, Brown reasoned, then the governor would have to take away funds from suburban districts like his.
"You put your finger on the defining issue of affordability in New Jersey," Christie said.
The governor was armed for the question and used a cheat sheet to wow the standing-room-only crowd with statistics. The average state aid for the mostly urban, so-called Abbott districts is $16,138 per student; the average amount of state aid for the rest of the state's districts is $2,895.
"That being said, the Abbott districts are a failure academically," Christie said. So, he said, why throw more money at the problem?
In his most expansive remarks on the issue, Christie vowed to challenge the advisory report in the Supreme Court to keep his school-funding formula intact. Otherwise, he speculated, he would have to cut all funding to hospitals, forcing some to close, and to cut all state aid for towns, driving up property taxes.
"I don't know, I'm a pretty simple guy and I'm not a genius, but this is crazy," he said. "So we're going to fight in the Supreme Court on behalf of the taxpayers. We can't print money in the state of New Jersey."
Christie said he would not, despite pleas from some Democratic circles, raise taxes on the rich, saying it would kill job creation and wouldn't bring in enough money anyway.
As Christie held his town-hall meeting in the sunny atrium of the new office building of New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Group - with about 600 people packed in and many more watching from an overflow room - his state treasurer appeared at an Assembly budget hearing in Trenton.
Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff told the Assembly Budget Committee that state revenue was projected to grow $1.2 billion in fiscal 2012, which starts in July, and would come in $100 million higher than anticipated for the current fiscal year.
Still, he cautioned, "we have a very long way to go" before revenue returns to its peak of 2008.
Exchanges between lawmakers and Sidamon-Eristoff grew tense at times, as they went back and forth on education funding, health care, property taxes, and a proposal by some Democrats to renew a surcharge on millionaires.
Echoing his boss, Sidamon-Eristoff rejected the possibility of a budget that restores the so-called millionaire's tax.
"History teaches us that tax increases in New Jersey never close deficits; they simply fuel more spending," he said. "That cycle has no place in the New Normal."
The treasurer provided few answers to Democrats' questions about Christie's proposal to save $300 million by applying for a federal waiver to change the state's Medicaid program. Sidamon-Eristoff said health officials were working on the application and would be reaching out to stakeholders.
Budget Chairman Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden) criticized the administration as not doing enough to address the state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes, noting that property taxes increased 24 percent in South Jersey last year after rebates were suspended and aid cut.
Sidamon-Eristoff called on lawmakers to adopt Christie's "tool kit" of proposals, including changes to the civil-service system, to help local governments keep spending in check.
Back in Hammonton, Christie said the other obstacle to fixing the state's fiscal situation was the state Supreme Court: "Those people, who are not elected by anyone and are not elected to be making laws, are making laws from the bench. . . . They're directing how money is supposed to be spent by the people that you elect to make those decisions - the Legislature and the governor."
He said the way to fix the Supreme Court was to have his nominee for the court, Anne Paterson, confirmed. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) has not held a nomination hearing for her, which Christie called "shameful."
"Everybody in this room who is a constituent of Sen. Sweeney should leave here today and call his district office and say, 'Enough is enough,' " Christie said.
"If he wants to pick Supreme Court justices, run for governor and beat me."
Sweeney and the Democrats are angry that Christie bucked precedent when he announced that he would not reappoint Justice John Wallace Jr.
"This issue is and will always only be about the governor's decision to remove Justice Wallace's moderate and respected voice from the court for purely political reasons," said Derek Roseman, a Sweeney spokesman.
"It is beyond irony that he continues to call for a hearing on his nominee when he was so unwilling to extend that same basic courtesy to Justice Wallace. The Senate president considers this a closed matter, as he did the day the governor decided to toss aside the entire concept of an independent judiciary."
In a sign that Christie and Sweeney fight fiercely on some issues but not so much on others, Christie vowed at the town-hall gathering to talk with Sweeney next week to resolve a problem in the Swedesboro-Woolwich School District, which has lost out on state funding because its population has skyrocketed so quickly.
Christie had called on a woman from the district, who has come to seven of his town-hall meetings, and told her he was working on resolving the issue. He suggested that the Legislature pass a bill, which he said he would sign, to approve more money for the district.
The governor said he talks with Sweeney regularly and would discuss this with him next week.
Njspotlight.com - Budget Spotlight: Hackettstown and Newark 3-30-11
In two corners of the state, budget pictures reflect a world of difference for their schools
By John Mooney, March 30 in Education
Four weeks before the April 27 school budget elections, NJ Spotlight will travel New Jersey to provide occasional snapshots of how local communities are grappling with the costs of public education in what remains a fragile economy.
Related Links
There is no one unifying story, not in the school budgets being drafted and debated by local communities, many as we speak. Unlike the budget deliberations of last year, when steep state aid reductions left schools almost uniformly looking at cuts, the prospects run the gamut.
Gov. Chris Christie has proposed a slight restoration of last year's aid cuts, and that has enabled some districts to restore programs as well. Others are rethinking how they are doing business and providing an education. And for still others, there is little solace in a new year, with more severe cuts and dire warnings to come.
We start with two of the extremes, both in the northern half of the state, one on the western edge that is not just surviving but providing some relief, another in what may seem a world away where there appears little relief in sight.
Hackettstown Gives Back
It’s been a tough couple of years for this community in western Warren County, where a soured economy and state aid cuts has left this district of 1,900 students and four schools with little cushion. After eight straight years of winning school budget votes, the last two were rejected.
Altogether, this year, that has meant 20 fewer positions on the payroll, including coaches, supervisors, teachers and secretaries, some laid off, others by attrition. It wasn’t Armageddon for the district, like for some, but it took its toll on class sizes, after-school programs and the support services that can make a difference.
"It was a significant loss in terms of our curriculum development," said Robert Gratz, the superintendent. "We eliminated our whole supervisors association."
This year should be a little better, with no cuts planned at all. And with a 6.3 percent increase in state aid from Trenton, the district has proposed a $29.6 million budget that would actually provide a 2.8 percent reduction in the tax levy. That amounts to a $44 reduction for the average taxpayer in a home assessed at $285,000 and paying about $3,800 a year in school taxes, officials said.
With a spending side still going up over 4 percent, the help has come from a few places. The big one is $182,000 in federal emergency aid for those lost jobs this year that the district banked for next year, helping to save two jobs. The district also had surplus left over from this year that it will carry over. Still there are a few other cautions, including a teachers contract that expires in June. The two sides are at least talking.
Is that enough to end the two-year losing streak and get back on the winning track, at the polls, Gratz is making no predictions, not any more.
"In this climate, I don’t think there are any guarantees anymore," he said.
Hackettstown's "user-friendly budget
Deja vu in Newark
One would think Newark schools would be catching a break these days, with a billionaire offering up a $100 million gift to improve the public education system, a charismatic mayor vowing to match it, and much of the nation watching and hoping the best for New Jersey’s largest and, arguably, most troubled city.
Then last week, the district’s top administrators -- all operating under the oversight of Trenton in this state-run district -- held a public hearing where they announced the district still faced a $10 million budget gap and more than 400 additional jobs could be eliminated next year. That on top of hundreds lost this year.
And that in a proposed budget that is perilously close to $1 billion a year, or $970,404,864 to be exact. (The district actually came closer in 2010, when it hit $995 million, before dropping down last year.)
The proposed budget, which only needs the state’s approval, is a 2 percent increase over last year’s and calls for a 3 percent increase in the local tax levy, staying within the maximum new caps set by Gov. Christie, when allowing for health and pension costs.
Still, the questions in the ensuing weeks and months will mount, to be sure, on where does all that money go at more than $17,000 per student -- depending on how one does the math.
But it certainly appears one main culprit remains an enrollment that continues to drop. Many students are attending charter schools that are now the center of much controversy in a district where Christie wants to expand them.
Newark will spend more on tuition for charter schools ($124 million) than four Hackettstowns combined. More than 9,000 of the city’s 48,000 public school students -- close to one in five -- are slated to attend the 20 charters that will serve Newark children next year.
"We reaching a point of no return as people keep leaving," said Junius Williams, a longtime advocate in the city and now with the Abbott Leadership Council at Rutgers University. "Even if the state gets rich as anything, we’ll always be laying off people."
There is some potential for relief with the state Supreme Court about to decide the latest round of Abbott v. Burke on whether additional aid needs to be afforded all districts in the wake of this year’s cuts. Among those who would benefit most are large urban districts like Newark, where there are the largest concentrations of poor and at-risk students.
But when and if that comes is anyone’s guess, and that has left some other advocates looking more to the short term.
"Even if we get $3 million back or whatever, I’m scared," said Wilhemina Holder, a parent advocate. "I’m wondering what these class sizes will look like after another year of this."
"And at Weequahic High School," she said, "they are talking about three security guards, reduced from seven. That’s the stuff that hurts."
Newark's "user-friendly" budget
Njspotlight.com - In His Own Words: Judge Doyne and his Evidentiary Opinion 3-30-11
As with form and function, it's difficult to separate what the special master to the Supreme Court said from how he said it
By John Mooney, March 30 in Education
Before moving on to yet more court hearings and documents surrounding the Abbott v. Burke school equity case -- there have been 20 decisions after all -- there is an opportunity to revisit an opinion that was as deep as it was long.
Related Links
State Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne, the chief assignment judge in Bergen County, last week fulfilled his task as "special master" to the state Supreme Court in issuing a 96-page evidentiary opinion on the state of public education in New Jersey.
It was high-charged, high-profile opinion. Headlines raged that he had found schools struggling to maintain a "thorough and efficient" education under the weight of Gov. Chris Christie and the legislature’s steep state budget cuts this year.
But how Doyne delivered his findings is as intriguing as what he said -- even with just a word or two -- on everything from school accountability to teacher wage freezes.
Here’s a few of the more intriguing excerpts:
On New Jersey’s long history and interest in school equity (p. 8):
Educational reform in the State of New Jersey has been a crusade waged in the courts for nearly four decades, producing twenty Supreme Court opinions in an effort to provide the schoolchildren of New Jersey with their constitutional right to a thorough and efficient education. No other issue has, even remotely, been the focus of such scrutiny and controversy.
School accountability (p. 52):
One area of concern identified by the State’s witness is the lack of a uniform standard within the State to determine whether a district is meeting or exceeding the CCCS [Core Curriculum Content Standards] … In other words, there is no standard similar to the 200-point "pass" score, which would require a district to have a certain percentage of its students pass in order to be considered meeting the CCCS. The assessments currently used by the State are either the statewide benchmarks under No Child Left Behind or the yearly progress towards those benchmarks. The lack of a uniform method to determine whether a district is meeting the CCCS is problematic, as this remand requires determining whether a thorough and efficient education can be delivered as measured by the CCCS, not by No Child Left Behind or any other standards.
Witnesses from Piscataway, Woodbridge, Bridgeton and Montgomery schools (pps. 56-57):
The superintendents appeared to be capable, hardworking and dedicated educators committed to the goal all of their students should meet or exceed the CCCS. The educators seemed to be genuinely motivated to provide the highest level educational experience to the students in their respective districts, given existing funding levels, while recognizing there need necessarily be some limit on educational funding. Their collective commitment to attempt to ensure all students meet the CCCS was clear. Their district’s ability to do so with current level of funding was far less certain.
Challenges of equitable funding in any year (p. 62):
One factor which makes educational funding problematic, and elusive, is the wide disparity between districts, whether by population, demographics, wealth, geography, and/or the like. While it may be possible for one district to achieve $1 million in savings, for another a $100,000 may not be possible. Without sufficient proofs, any finding concerning the overall amount of savings "efficiencies" would be mere speculation.
The state of schools in 2011 and the state’s burden of proof (p. 72):
The loss of teachers, support staff and programs is causing less advanced students to fall farther behind and they are becoming demonstrably less proficient. Is there a concern teachers have failed to heed the request to freeze their salaries in an effort to assist their students, certainly. Are there concerns the various collective bargaining agreements curtail flexibility and available teaching time, certainly. The directive to this court, though, is clear and the superintendents’ testimony, collectively, did not allow this court to find the State had met its burden, at least with regard to these witnesses.
Cost savings – and obstacles -- in Clifton and Buena Regional (pps. 84-85)
The two superintendents recounted the various efficiency measures implemented by their districts, including saving on cafeteria services, transportation costs, health care plans, and legal services. It was clear from their testimony the obstacles to cost savings were much the same as those identified by the defendants’ district witnesses: collective bargaining agreements, teacher tenure, including the high costs associated with removal of a tenured teacher for inefficiency, the school district’s board of education’s decision to abide by voter rejection of increased tax levies, and the unfortunate rejection of pay freezes by teachers’ associations.
The court’s constitutional duty (p. 94):
Our Court has recognized, as it must, it cannot and should not run our school system. That responsibility must repose with the other branches of government, and thereafter with the Department of Education and the various districts in the prudent utilization of funding provided. That said, the Court cannot abandon or waiver from its constitutional commitment. Although discretion had been afforded to the individual districts to spend their allocated monies in a manner that best serves those districts’ needs, it was painfully obvious important support and ancillary programs have been eliminated in effectuating the imposed reductions. These programs had helped bring our at-risk and under- performing students closer to the mandated standards.
The “irony” of the current debate (pps. 94-95)
The irony of the parties’ current position is too obvious to note. Two years ago, the State came before this court and the New Jersey Supreme Court urgently petitioning for an abandonment of parity funding, and an acceptance and implementation of a fairer funding formula which was structured to ensure all students in New Jersey, not just those who by happenstance resided in the Abbott districts, receive a thorough and efficient education as measured by the Comprehensive Core Curriculum Standards. The plaintiffs, with equal fervor, argued the formula inadequately cared for our disadvantaged youth and implored the Court to retain the parity remedy, at least until a more equitable formula could be enacted. Now, less than two years thereafter, the State seeks to abandon the formula it fought so strenuously to support, and the plaintiffs insist the formula must be supported.
An “exquisite balance” and the task at hand (p. 95)
The difficulty in addressing New Jersey’s fiscal crisis and its constitutionally mandated obligation to educate our children requires an exquisite balance not easily attained. Fair and equitable education funding is a conundrum that has been addressed by our Court for almost forty years and, one might imagine, is not soon to conclude. Progress has been made; how to maintain that progress in light of daunting fiscal realities, reposes with our highest Court and the other coordinate branches. Something need be done to equitably address these competing imperatives.
The Record - Opinion: Looking back at start of school-funding fight
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Record
NEW JERSEY has been arguing about how to pay for public schools, and how much to pay, for almost four decades. All three branches of the state government have been involved: the Legislature, the governor’s office and the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court.
No other issue has generated anywhere near as many court decisions. There have been 25 of them, going back to 1973. The rulings have involved politics and personalities as well as legal abstractions. A look back is instructive.
The story actually begins even earlier, in 1875, when the Legislature and voters approved an amendment to the Constitution of 1844. In wording that has survived unchanged to this day in the Constitution of 1947, it declares:
“The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.”
Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Ha.
Fast forward to 1970. A lawsuit, Robinson v. Cahill, is brought by Jersey City contending that the state’s school funding system discriminates against poor urban districts. The lead plaintiff, Kenneth Robinson, is a 12-year-old Jersey City seventh-grader whose mother works for the city.
William Cahill, an irascible Republican, was governor at the time. He had just been elected by a big majority over Robert Meyner, a conservative Democrat who had served two four-year terms as governor in the Fifties and was trying for a comeback.
One of the first things Cahill did, with the support of Republican majorities in the Legislature, was to raise the state sales tax from 3 percent to 5 percent. Voters were surprised and outraged.
In April 1973 the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs in Robinson v. Cahill, holding that the state’s heavy reliance on property taxes for education did indeed harm low-income districts.
In the Republican primary election soon thereafter, Cahill lost his bid for reelection to an unheralded senator from Cape May, Charles Sandman Jr., who went on to lose the general election to Democrat Brendan Byrne by a margin of 2 to 1.
Act of revenge
An angry Cahill, bent on revenge, seized upon a vacancy in the important position of chief justice of the Supreme Court. To fill it, he turned, not to a fellow Republican but to Cahill’s predecessor as governor, Richard J. Hughes, a Democrat.
A former judge and a widower with four children, Hughes had married Elizabeth Murphy, a widow with three boys. The couple proceeded to have three children of their own.
In Morven, the governor’s mansion, Betty Hughes proved to be a natural as first lady, warm and folksy, serving hamburgers and potato salad to President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin at the Glassboro Summit of 1967.
But she hoped that once her husband left the governorship, he would get a comfortable, well-paying job to support their family, perhaps as rainmaker partner in a big law firm.
And he did, but three years later, here was Bill Cahill, asking him to serve the state once more, as chief justice. Hughes hesitated, but the opportunity proved too inviting to pass up.
In 1975 the Legislature passed the Public School Education Act, known for short as Chapter 212. Governor Byrne signed it, creating a new state funding formula for public schools. Trouble was, the Legislature, now controlled by Democrats, had not provided a source of revenue to pay for it.
Attempts to pass one got nowhere. Impasse was escalating toward crisis. The following summer the matter reached the Supreme Court. The governor wanted to address the justices personally on the issues. The court consented.
Picture this courtroom scene now: Hughes, the chief justice, at the center of the bench, was a former governor. He had been nominated by another governor, Cahill, the lead defendant in the school-funding litigation, who had been turned out of office for raising the sales tax.
A bold move
A third governor, the incumbent Byrne, was about to address the justices. He had a school-funding solution in mind. It was bold. New Jersey did not then have an income tax. Byrne wanted the court to close all public schools until the Legislature passed one.
It was gripping legal theater. I was there. Hughes set the ground rules. Byrne would present his case without interruption by the justices. The governor’s counsel would then defend the administration’s case point by point. The justices were persuaded.
On July 1 the court ordered all schools closed, ending summer sessions for 100,000 students. A week later the Legislature passed a 2 percent to 2.5 percent tax on income. The court thereupon lifted its order, classes resumed, and Byrne, with the assistance of property tax rebates fueled by the new income tax, went on to win reelection in 1977.
The litigation resumed later, with a new case called Abbott v. Burke. The court has issued 20 decisions so far in this string, with another in prospect.
James Ahearn is a former managing editor of The Record.
