NJ Education Report

Policy wonks always favor the idea of merging municipalities and school districts. As property taxes soar, more and more voters agree. The devil, of course, is in the details. Let’s see how many New Jersey politicians are willing to vote themselves or their friends out of a job.

Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. PolitickerNJ reports on the new Quinnipiac poll, which shows that 2/3 of New Jersey voters favor merging school districts to reduce property taxes, are split 44%-46% on whether teacher unions play a positive or negative role, overwhelmingly support merit pay for teachers and making it easier to fire bad teachers, and are opposed to school vouchers and charter schools.

Makes sense (at least to us policy wonks out here). The opposition to charter schools is a bit disconcerting. Did the responders provided with definitions of charters? Do people lump public charter schools and school vouchers together? Sounds like education reformers in N.J. need to do a little more educating.