The Asbury Park Press’s 11-page expose on Lakewood Public Schools, “Cheated,” is (finally!) online. For those playing catch-up, Lakewood is an unusual district: while 5,600 children attend the public schools, the district spends almost ¼ of its $130 million annual budget on transportation and special education costs for 22,000 children who attend Hasidic private day schools. The School Board — 8 of 9 members belong to the Hasidic community — defers on all matters to Board Attorney Michael Inzelbuch who, until he was fired last week, made about $500,000 per year. The Board also just fired its Superintendent, Lydia Silva, and has been through a multiple high school principals and business administrators in just the last few years. A new community group, Lakewood UNITE, has attempted to shed light on distressingly low performance among the all-minority kids who attend Lakewood Public Schools and Board member shenanigans.
Here’s some of my previous coverage here, here, here, and here.
Here’s a few highlights from the Asbury Park Press series:
“Like magic, the Lakewood High School Class of 2010 disappeared in its freshman year… The October enrollment for that class in the 2006-07 school year stood at 328. The number of freshman dropouts reported by Lakewood that year: 328.”
“A similar mistake — nearly the entire sophomore class disappeared on paper — yielded a nearly identical, low graduation rate for the Class of 2009… Michael Inzelbuch says “Let me make it clear. There are data entry concerns.”
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I think that the issue of Lakewood's misgovernance should be separate from the fact that 80% of children in Lakewood attend private schools and the Lakewood school district thus spends over $30 million a year on subsidized private school transportation, nurses, textbooks etc.
Sometimes you write as if the fact that Lakewood transfers $30+ million to private schools as something to object to, when the only reason Lakewood transfers so much to private schools is that it simply has a huge private school population. If you do not think that public school systems should share any resources with private schools then fine, but as long as NJ requires public school districts to do pay for certain private school expenses, then it is no more objectionable for Orthodox Jewish kids to get subsidies for yeshiva education as it is for totally secular kids (whose parents are probably A LOT wealthier) to get subsidies to attend Rutgers Prep, Pingry, Blair Academy etc.
So Lakewood spends a quarter of its budget on private schools but for 80% of its student-age population. Another way to look at that is that Lakewood spends 75% of its budget on 20% of its population.
The misgovernance is inexcuseable. To the extent that it is related to Lakewood's unique demographics it is the result of people being elected to the school board whose priority is tax restraint, not educational excellence. The governance structure of elected Boards that (usually) works in towns with typical demographics does not work for a Lakewood.
One can say that people whose primary concern is restraining taxes and not education have no business on a Board of Education, but some sympathy is in order for parents who still pay massive school taxes, and yet receive no benefit from those taxes. Most secular private school parents are wealthy, but I don't think that applies in Lakewood.
In America we have a sacred principle that the public pays for public schooling and that parents who don't want to avail themselves of the public school still have to pay taxes for those public schools and receive no help for private schools (NJ is an exception in allowing very limited help). We also have a sacred principle of elected boards of education.
In international comparison, neither is a rule. Many democracies, like the UK and Sweden, allow choice. In the UK there are many religious, including Jewish schools, that receive money from the government, with parents just paying a premium for religious education. Many countries do not have the system of elected Boards of Ed.
Perhaps parents should have education choice, aka, the money should follow the child? Rather than elected Boards of Ed imposing one-size-fits-all education programs on parents, why not give parents options and trust them to know what is best for their children?
I am so sorry that the only comment so far is from this deluded man who actually believes that a town population in which 80% of parents sending their children to religious private school and receiving taxpayer funding for this is acceptable. Mr. Bellis writes "In America we have a sacred principle that the public pays for public schooling..." when in fact no such ethic exists, as demonstrated by by public school districts such as Lakewood, where public school children have to walk to school in snowy winter weather so that private school children, whose parents have CHOSEN to send their kids to religious school, can receive taxpayer subsidized bus rides while being segregated by race and gender. Obviously nothing is sacred in this picture.
Aside from economic inequalities, segregation is another very sad reality of educational choice. The public school system in American was designed to be secular and community based. It was based loosely on enlightenment ideals such as religious freedom. The ideas behind public school is that all students are welcome, regardless of money, race or religion. In a public school, students will experience diversity that results in a more tolerance that is learned from an early age. Mr. Bellis's recommendation of "educational choice" will only lead to white schools The religious community of Lakewood has taken the segregation one step further by separating also by gender - boys and girls are in different schools and on different buses.
The whole situation in Lakewood is extremely sad. The only thing that will save this community is a state or federally mandated, interfaith monitoring board to drive out the local despots, rebuild Lakewood's corrupt school board on fair and democratic principles, reinvest in the the public schools, and make Lakewood a diverse community. Maybe that will eliminate the failure of the Lakewood, NJ public school district.