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TagsBY ERIC KILLELEA
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Monday night in our nation's capital, the American Federation for Children — a Washington-based school-choice advocacy group — hosted a keynote speech delivered by Governor Chris Christie in a four-diamond Omni Shoreham Hotel. There the Governor announced his support for bipartisan bill (S-1872), recognizing a scholarship program that would allow students to opt out of 200 "chronically failing" New Jersey schools.
As reported by NorthJersey.com, "Schools would be classified as "chronically failing" if at least 40 percent of their students fail to demonstrate proficiency on statewide math and language arts tests for two years in a row, or if at least 65 percent of students failed either test."
Bill co-sponsors Senator Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) and Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) told the online newspaper, that more than 200 schools in 30 districts now qualify.
Currently pending in the Legislature, the bill, if passed, would help nearly 24,000 students pay tuition for private or public schooling of choice, perhaps in other communities. The scholarships, according to NorthJersey.com, would be funded by corporate donors who would get a break on their state taxes.During an interview with nj.com, Steve Baker of the New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, said that vouchers divert money from public education at a time Christie has already ordered deep budget cuts.
"To talk about taking more money out of the state budget and dedicating it to providing subsidies for private education, it's incredibly misguided priorities," Baker said. "It's fundamentally a matter of whether public education is public or not."
Baker said that if schools are failing, giving the money that's being spent on them to other schools won't fix them. The public needs to provide the resources to help them perform, and data have shown New Jersey among the nation's leaders in closing the gap between the best schools and the worst, he said.
Betsy Devos, the Federation chairwoman, disagreed.
"Gov Christie is taking on the education status quo like no other governor today," Devos told nj.com.
"They [parents and students] are trapped by a self-interested, greedy schoolteachers union that cares more about putting money in their own pockets and pockets of members than they care about educating the most vulnerable and needy children," Christie said.
With his own kids in Catholic school, and with his wife, Mary Pat, in attendance, Christie said, "A single mother in Newark working two jobs to keep a roof over her child's head should have no less ability to make that choice than my wife and I had."
If a factory is failing, you don't blame the worker; what control of policy does he have? In business you hold the administrators (bosses) accountable. No appointment of a principle, school superintendant, or any other school administrator is done on merit or ability. It is always the product of the who knows who, who is related to whom, old boy culture that makes politicians powerful. The truth is we all let it happen in our school systems saying, "Well, that's politics, you can't do anything about it."
Teachers negotiate their salaries with local school boards, not the state. Local school boards know their teachers, have kids in schools, and know their community's worth. I agree with the previous poster, belt tightening should be modeled from the top down.