NJ Education Report

An audit of the NJ DOE’s oversight of charter schools finds that there is, according to NJ Spotlight, “a host of problems,” including a lack of a system to identify successful and failing schools, as well as problems with the approval process. The DOE responds that it has corrected many of these issues over the last 18 months. Audit here.

The U.S. Department of Education has a new plan to ensure that children with disabilities are not educated within “a one-size-fits-all, compliance-focused approach” but instead are part of a “more balanced system that looks at how well students are being educated in addition to continued efforts to protect their rights.”

Charles Stile, columnist for The Record, considers Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s remarks criticizing President Obama’s campaign attacks on Bain Capital:

Booker has bucked the liberal establishment by embracing some conservative ideas on public-school reform. He extols the virtue of public-private partnerships, and in the age of state budget cuts he has tapped plutocrats eager to pump their new Gilded Age gold into charter schools, parks and even police equipment. This is Booker’s base, not the public employee unions or the construction trades. So it comes as no surprise that Booker rushed to Bain’s defense. Pragmatism trumps partisan imperatives. 

Also from The Record: Education Law Center “urged New Jersey lawmakers to reject Gov. Chris Christie’s schools budget for the coming year, claiming that it changes the formula for funding public education without prior legislative approval and in ways that will shortchange districts with the largest percentages of poor and non-English-speaking students.” ELC press release here.

From the Courier-Post: “It costs New Jersey taxpayers up to $77 million a year to transport nearly 90,000 schoolchildren to religious and other private schools as cash-strapped districts struggle to fulfill a longtime state law that requires transportation funding for nonprofit schools.” The most striking case is Lakewood Public Schools:

The district, which has been beset by scandals of lost money, test coaching and a questionable grant application, will spend roughly three-quarters of its $20 million transportation budget this school year on busing the private school students. Although Lakewood spends millions on mandatory private school busing, it hasn’t been able to find the funds in its $133 million budget to fix a leaking roof in its middle school.

Aspiring teacher Hugh Jackman goes for an interview at the Harlem Village Academy.