NJ Education Report

From yesterday’s NJ Spotlight article on NJ’s progress towards updating our charter school laws:

“This is exciting,” said Carlos Perez, executive director of the New Jersey Charter Schools Association. “We’ve talked about the need for a charter reform bill for some time now. The administration is absolutely correct that a strong charter law is the pathway to high quality charter schools.”

Others with a different vision for revising the charter-school law continued to oppose Christie’s approach and policies.

“What the overwhelming majority of New Jersey residents want added to the charter law is local approval of new charter schools and of charter expansions, more transparency and accountability, and an end to the terrible segregation between charters and traditional public schools,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a founder of Save Our Schools-New Jersey.
“Instead, the Governor is proposing failed for-profit charter schools and an increase in charter schools being forced on unwilling communities,” she said.

[Assemblyman Patrick] Diegnan, who has sided more with the positions of SOS and other critics of the Christie administration’s policies, said he would continue to press for tighter controls.

For instance, Diegnan said his bill would include a controversial provision requiring a vote by local residents before any new charter school is approved to open.
“I remain a big advocate for that,” he said.

This excerpt is a useful window into some of the rhetoric surrounding the issue of local control and school choice. First, a reality check. There’s no evidence that the “overwhelming majority” of NJ residents prefer local referenda on charter school expansion. Certainly there’s terrible segregation among NJ’s public schools, but that has nothing to do with charter schools.  SOS’s contention that  school choice proponents are jockeying for “failed for-profit charter schools” is just silly. 

Assemblyman Diegnan and SOS-NJ want the Legislature to pass a bill that subjects all aspiring charter schools to a public referendum. They hope to garner more support than another piece of charter school legislation written by  Senator Teresa Ruiz, duly hallowed for her successful shepherding of a major tenure and evaluation reform bill through the Legislature last year. Ruiz’s bill, reportedly, would increase accountability, create multiple authorizers (right now only the Ed. Commissioner can approve new charters), and perhaps address funding inequities. The bill does not, however, require local approval of new charters. In fact, Sen. Ruiz appears to take a dim view of this element, which represents the core of the Diegnan bill and SOS’s raison d’etre.

Is there really some sort of bill rivalry within the Legislature, Diegnan’s bill against Ruiz’s? Not so much. The only side fighting is the SOS/Diegnan side; Ruiz is pretty much giving them the hand.  After all, Sen. Pres. Steve Sweeney says he won’t bring Diegnan’s bill to the floor and Gov. Christie says he won’t sign it because both agree that such narrow-minded legislation would stymie charter school growth.

SOS and Diegnan do have the support of gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Barbara Buono. In an article last year in Spotlight, Buono was asked why Diegnan’s bill had stalled. She replied, “ask the chairman of the Senate committee.” That would be Ruiz.
 
Let’s look more strategically at a bill that would give local communities or school boards the right to deny student enrollment in other public schools.

New Jersey school boards regularly pay for students to attend other schools at district expense, without any public vote. NJ’s successful Interdistrict School Choice Program,  with enrollment doubling in September for the second consecutive year, allows students to cross district lines without local approval. Sending districts pay the full freight, including transportation. NJ’s robust industry of magnet schools, which often operate under the umbrella of county vo-tech systems, allows students to attend out-of-district schools at the sending district’s expense, without a public vote. Of course, students with disabilities attend out-of-district schools at local district expense and nobody votes on that.

An article last week in the Record regarding Parsippany Public Schools profiled a recent school board meeting where one of the PTA presidents noted the “countless eighth-grade parents standing at their mailbox waiting to hear from the Morris County School of Technology (MCST) for an acceptance — like it’s a free ride letter from Harvard — so their child doesn’t have to attend Parsippany High School.” MCST is a magnet school, open to all kids in the county (or at least those who have the grades and test scores to get in. There’s that segregation.) No community vote, by the way.

SOS’s lobbying efforts (and Diegnan’s bill) limit public voice to only one version of choice: charter schools. Do Diegnan, Buono, and SOS plan to craft legislation that  denies students the right to attend interdistrict schools or magnet schools unless everyone gets to vote on that choice? Why is their hostility reserved for the one form of school choice that offers the most promise for kids trapped in our lowest-performing districts?