newjerseynewsroom.com

Governor also wants to create public school choice

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Gov. Chris Christie Thursday outlined additional measures he wants to take to try to improve New Jersey public education system, including supporting the expansion of publicly-funded but privately-operated charter schools.

The proposals are the second round of education proposals issued this week by the governor.

Christie also put his support behind legislation that would create a five-year pilot program that would give corporations tax credits for donating to a scholarship fund for low-income students in such poor performing school districts as Camden, Trenton and Newark.

Students would use the money to transfer to nearby but better out-of-district public schools or private schools that would participate in the scholarship program. He foresees 19,000 students gaining the scholarship money over a three-year period.

Christie's would also permit single-sex charter schools or enable the schools to provide just special education or on-line learning.

Christie detailed his plans at a public meeting in Hoboken organized by his staff. He said he wants to empower parents with greater school choice and access, to expand charter schools that he determines are high quality and spur innovative learning.

The governor was joined by Harlem Children's Zone founder and CEO Geoffrey Canada and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

"We cannot continue to ask children and families stuck in chronically failing public schools to wait any longer,'' Christie said. "Quite simply, parents and children deserve a choice. We must be able to fulfill our obligation to provide parents and their children with educational alternatives that include expanding high quality charter schools and providing inter-district public school options. By giving parents the power of choice, we are ensuring that students will have the opportunities they deserve for a bright and successful future."

The governor said the need for improved school choice is clear. He said that presently, 104,000 students are enrolled in 205 chronically failing schools. He said that last year, 40 percent of African-American and 32 percent of Hispanic students were unable to meet basic standards on a national test.

Christie said that likewise, New Jersey's education system has failed to prepare vast numbers of students with the critical skills required to be competitive in college or the workforce. In 2009, nearly 30 percent of all 8th graders statewide lacked basic math skills.

Canada said he supports the governor‘s effort.

"With strong leadership and a commitment that never strays from putting the best interest of our children first, change can come,'' Canada said. "In Harlem, we've proved that together, through community and partnerships and real diligence, we can create a radically different kind of environment for our young people to grow up in this country."

Christie said his proposals attempt to remove hurdles and roadblocks to expanding and growing New Jersey's best charter schools, gives parents greater educational choices, and provides flexibility for charters to get back to their core purpose — getting results for children through greater innovation and creativity.

Christie‘s proposals brought a response from Barbara Keshishian, president of the New Jersey Education Association, the statewide teachers‘ union.

"NJEA believes there is an important role for high-quality public charter schools to play in the overall effort to provide a great public school for every child,'' Keshishian said. "Not all charter schools are successful, of course. A Stanford University study of 2,400 charters nationwide found that fewer than one-fifth of them outperformed public schools, while nearly two-fifths of them performed at a lower level than their public counterparts.

"And, a study by a Rutgers professor found that New Jersey's charter schools perform far below the average public school, and only as well as the public schools in the districts in which they are located,'' Keshishian said. "Clearly, there are excellent charter schools — like the Robert Treat Academy in Newark — and excellent public schools. Charter schools were meant to be laboratories of innovation — not a replacement for all public schools. If we're really smart, we'll identify excellent schools of all types and replicate their successes wherever we can.

"As for vouchers, we do not believe that public funds should be used for private and religious schools, and neither do a majority of New Jersey residents,'' Keshishian added. "At a time when we are cutting more than a billion dollars from state school spending while demanding ever-more accountability from the public schools, the last thing we should be doing is spending 360 million dollars on unaccountable private and religious schools."

On Tuesday, Christie outlined the first part of his plan to improve public education with proposals to reward innovative and effective teaching, expand opportunities for the best teachers, and put student achievement at the center of educator evaluations. The governor also outlined proposals to empower parents to become better advocates for quality education for their children and increase accountability in public schools.

Here are the governor's proposals as described by his office:

• Charter Schools in New Jersey
• Seventy-three charter schools are operating in New Jersey, serving 26,000 students.
• Over 11,000 students are on charter school waiting lists.
• New Jersey charter schools serve roughly 1.4 percent of the K-12 student population in the state.
• Cities with the largest number of at-risk children have large concentrations of charter schools.
• Camden: 17.5 % of Camden students attend charter schools. Trenton has the second highest market share with 14.6 percent of students. Newark has 10.2 percent of students attend charter schools.
• To change these unacceptable results, Christie's agenda removes hurdles and roadblocks to expanding and growing high-quality charter schools, empowers parents with greater choice and provides flexibility for charter school to adopt innovative and creative teaching methods that meet the needs of the community.

Fulfilling New Jersey's Obligation to Children and Parents: Providing an Alternative to Failing Schools:

• In order to change the status quo, parents must be given options. It is unacceptable for children to be trapped in failing schools without any hope. Despite some of the highest levels of education spending in the entire nation, New Jersey's public schools continue to confront a critical achievement gap that shortchanges our children. The achievement gap between wealthy and low-income 8th graders in math is nearly the same today as it was 19 years ago; the gap between at-risk 4th graders and those not at-risk has remained nearly unchanged over the past 13 years.
• The Christie plan removes barriers to growing and expanding successful charter schools already in New Jersey, opens the doors to world-class charter school operators and increases the ability to innovate in the classroom.

Overhauling New Jersey's Charter School Laws to Encourage Growth and Expansion:

• Sweeping changes to New Jersey's charter school laws are needed to remove barriers and roadblocks to growth. Today, the laws and rules governing charter schools act as a deterrent to growth instead of fostering expansion. It is time to aggressively encourage some of the nation's most-respected and successful charter school operators, such as Mastery, Achievement First and Green Dot, to come to New Jersey while making it possible to implement the same model of innovation and results in other new and existing charter schools.

Growing and Expanding High-Quality Charter Schools:

• Developing a list of qualified charter management organizations for designation as "preferred providers" to streamline partnerships, expansion and replication of the best charter schools.
• Removing barriers to private and parochial schools converting to charter status by eliminating the one-year delay and grandfathering currently enrolled students automatically;
• Removing hurdles for public schools to convert to charter status by changing the rules related to parent, community or staff support required for conversion, as was recently done in California; and,
• Assisting the growth of charter schools by expanding the universe of potential affected students to enroll by shifting from a designated number of districts to a mile-radius pool of students, no matter the number of eligible districts.
• Establishing a rolling application period for charter applicants.

Increasing Charter School Authorizing Capacity Through The New Jersey Department of Education:

• Approving new and high-quality charter school authorizers, while continuing to operate as a charter school authorizer itself.
• Expanding the pool of potential authorizers to all public entities, including school districts.
• Basing authorizer selection on a demonstrated commitment and capacity to grow high-quality charter schools.

Charter School Performance:

• 70% of New Jersey's charter high schools had a higher 2009 graduation rate than their local district average.

Grades 3-8 Assessments in '08-'09 Outperform Traditional Public Schools:

• 71 percent of charter schools outperformed their local district on Language Arts.
• 61 percent of charter schools outperformed their local district on Math.
• High School Assessments in '08-'09 Outperform Traditional Public Schools
• 60 percent of charter schools outperformed their local district on Language Arts
• 66 percent of charter schools outperformed their local district on Math
• Implementing Best Practices for Charter School Management:
• Creating performance contracts for charter schools.

Spurring Charter School Innovation and Creativity:

• Allowing single-sex charter schools.
• Allowing charters with a special education focus.
• Encouraging cyber and virtual charter schools.
• Encouraging Greater Cooperation Between School Districts and Charter Schools:
• Enable closing of failing schools and converting them to charter schools.
• Providing for facilities assistance and sharing of space. The DOE will develop a program to encourage coordination and space sharing between charters and their local school districts.
• Taking Immediate Steps Right Now to Improve Education for New Jersey's Children

Providing Rapid Relief for Children in Failing Schools:

• Every child deserves a high-quality education, but too often, low-income and lower middle-income children are trapped in failing schools. The governor will sign the Opportunity Scholarship Act that is currently moving through the Legislature. As written, the Opportunity Scholarship Act will help between 2,500 and 3,800 children leave their chronically failing public schools in the first year; up to 7,600 in the second year, and as many as 19,000 when the program is at full capacity.
• Introduced in March 2010 with bi-partisan sponsorship, the Opportunity Scholarship Act will establish a five-year pilot corporate tax credit scholarship program to fund scholarships for low-income students trapped in the state's lowest performing public schools. The scholarships will enable students to attend out-of-district public schools, or non-public schools anywhere in the state, that choose to participate in the program.
• At least 75 percent of the scholarships will be awarded to current public school students who may choose to attend a better public or private school.
• There is no time to waste as children continue to wait for a solution. The legislature must take immediate action on this bill.

Giving Children Hope By Making the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program Permanent:

• Full implementation of the Interdistrict School Choice program that Governor Christie signed into law earlier this month will enable hundreds of families to send their children to high quality public schools in nearby neighborhoods.
• The new law makes the Interdistrict School Choice program permanent.
• Schools decide whether they want to participate in the program.
• Preference for enrollment may be given to siblings of students who are enrolled in a designated school to keep families together.