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The towns weigh in on school budget cuts
Municipal leaders must revisit spending plans voters rejected Monday, May 01, 2006 BY JOHN MOONEY Star-Ledger Staff In scores of cities and towns across the state, mayors and councils will sit down this month and cut a budget item they rarely must confront: school spending. Rumson's mayor and council will take a crack at school spending for the first time in a quarter century. "You go into it with mixed emotions," Mayor John Ekdahl said. "On one hand I'm reluctant to do anything that would upset what we've been doing in our schools. But we face an overwhelming mandate to take a hard look at the budget, and we will." It's a system with many critics. This year, the April 18 election saw the lowest budget approval rate in more than a decade -- many pointed to the public's rising frustration with property taxes -- and just 16 percent turnout among registered voters. Several prominent legislators have proposed big changes in the system, starting with the near-perennial idea of moving the election date to the primary or general election to help boost the turnout. But state Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer) also sees new hope for her long-standing bill to take the budget out of the hands of voters if the districts stay under certain spending limits. "I've had that bill in there forever," said Turner, who chairs the Senate education committee. "But it may be different now. This election was a wake-up call for all of us." Turner plans hearings on the elections, starting May 11. In the Assembly, Speaker Joe Roberts also said the system needs to change. "It's an election where nobody shows up, and to believe it somehow legitimizes the budget process is a ridiculous notion," Roberts said last week. Still, any changes to the process won't affect this round of budgets for the next school year, and the governing bodies of communities across the state are getting ready to face off, many this week. Each community handles it differently. Sometimes, the school board proposes cuts for the council to consider. Elsewhere, councils set the initial targets and begin the back and forth. While recommending specific areas to trim, the council only decides on a bottom-line amount to be cut, if any at all. The school board then has the discretion where to take the money out. The school board also has the right to appeal any decision to the state Commissioner of Education, but that is rare. About 20 such appeals have been filed in the last four years, according to the state's school boards association. Some predict local councils will be more aggressive this year, given public sentiment expressed in the budget votes. "The mood is basic frustration," said William Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities. "And not just the from the voters, but the mayors and councils who are taking the political heat for something that has nothing to do with them. "Quite frankly, I think councils will be looking very critically at the budgets and seriously consider what the voters were saying." In Rumson, Ekdahl said he hopes to trim about a quarter of the proposed 4 percent tax increase that was spurned by the voters. That will be mean about $200,000 in cuts, he said. "With the budget going down two to one, we have to listen to the voters," he said. "We're hoping not to go line by line, but we will if we have to." It's a process that unnerves many on school boards who spent months massaging and then selling their budgets to only now have to do so again. "It's harrowing," Nagy said. "They are people who don't deal much with education budgets, don't have the background, and then are asked to make judgments to what is needed or not, all in an extremely short period of time. "I understand the voters said no, and the pressure is on them to make cuts," she said. "But the question is how much." John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com, or 973-392-1548. |
N.J. asks to adjust school reform rules
No Child Left Behind compliance at issue
Friday, April 28, 2006
BY JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff
Acting Education Commis sioner Lucille Davy has asked the federal government for several amendments in the state's regulations as they pertain to the law, seeking to loosen some require ments and tighten others.
In all, the state's requests are consistent with those already approved in many other states, officials and others said, as both
"There is no pullback in this in terms of accountability," Davy said recently of the state's requests. "It is just a matter of fairness."
The state's requests are largely in the fine print of how the law is applied in
Overall, the federal law requires that schools show that students in all categories -- black, white, Hispanic or special education -- gain proficiency in math and reading, ending with 100 percent proficiency by 2014.
Any school that falls short in any one category can face escalat ing sanctions, from the transfer of students to eventually the possible closing the school altogether.
But within that broad mandate, states set the achievement levels needed each year on the way to 100 percent, and the regulations for how the schools are measured.
And for those still taking the state's standard exam, Davy would also adjust the number of students in a racial or other category needed for the school to be held accountable for those results.
The state now sets the minimum at 20 students needed in a given racial category and 35 in special education. Davy's proposal would put the number at 30 stu dents for all the categories, in up to three grades, depending on the test.
In addition, the state has asked to use a so-called "confidence interval" to measure overall scores, essentially giving schools a margin of error if they are just one or two children off the required proficiency levels, officials said.
The federal Department of Education is expected to act on the proposal in the next couple of months, in time for the state's announcement next fall of how schools fare after this spring's tests.
Virtually every state is doing some tinkering with how it applies the federal law, and U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has been more flexible in some of the law's harshest edicts.
"States are grappling with a very difficult and complicated law, and since they can't change the law itself, they are tweaking its proce dures," said John Jennings, direc tor of the Center on Education Policy, a
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