hotels Bled Education has always been an issue of primary concern for parents. But now,education is increasingly becoming a critical issue for New Jersey's business leaders. Thatis because employers know that if New Jersey is to remain competitive in a global economy,we must have a workforce that possesses the skills and intellect necessary for the jobs of the21st century. Many New Jersey business owners are also understandably concerned aboutthe skyrocketing cost of education because the sky-rocketing taxes that we pay to fund ourpublic school system are hurting the state's economy.
New Jersey's Constitution guarantees every child a "thorough and efficient"education, yet any objective analysis of student performance of urban public schools showsthat we are far from meeting this obligation. Consider these three statistics: less than halfof the ninth graders in our urban public schools finish high school, only 41% of those whoremain in school passed their High School Proficiency Test this year, and only 6% of oururban 8th graders who took the Early Warning Test were judged to be fully competent in basic math.
Spending More Money Is Not The Answer
Jersey City is a perfect illustration of how increases in the cost of public educationdo not necessarily translate into higher quality. Since the state seized control of our school district in 1989, spending has increased by $75 million per year. Wenow spend over $9,000 per year to educate each child. Despite a massive infusion of statefunds, student achievement scores and graduation rates have barely budged, and both arestill far below the state average.
If a lack of money is not the problem, then what is? In my opinion the problem lieswith the way in which our hard-earned tax dollars are being spent. Accordingly, I haveproposed a comprehensive educational reform program for Jersey City, called the JerseyCity "Schoolchildren First" Education Act, that will improve the quality of education bygiving parents and teachers the power to fundamentally change the way we educate ourchildren -- without increasing taxes!
Meeting The Diverse Needs Of Our Students
The reason that so many of our inner city students perform poorly on achievementtests is not because their schools are "bad" relative to those in suburbia, but because so many of our students are severely disadvantaged and come to school withextraordinary needs and challenges -- needs that our bureaucratically rigid governmentschools simply cannot address well. In fact, there is no single, homogenized model ofeducation that can successfully work with a population that is as diverse, and oftendisadvantaged, as Jersey City's.Children with special needs are not unique to our inner cities, but they are much more abundant. For example:
To meet the diverse needs of these children, we need to replace today'sbureaucratically rigid approach to education. We need to realize that there is no "one bestschool" capable of working for each of them. Instead, our teachers should have thefreedom to create a broad range of specialized programs that are tailor-made to addressthe different needs of our children.
Building On Proven Successes
Alternative education programs that focus on the individual needs of children arespringing up across America, and they are proving to be quite successful at educatingchildren who were not performing well at traditional public schools. For example, EastHarlem's "Schools of Choice" program has dramatically improved student performance. This low-income, primarily Hispanic, school district was once the lowest scoring of New York City's 32 school districts. As a result of the "Schools ofChoice" program, the district rose to 15th best in just ten years -- out-performing manymiddle-class and primarily English-speaking districts.
Here in Jersey City, the privately-managed Kenmare School graduates the vastmajority of its students, all of whom are young women who had previously dropped out ofthe education system. To meet the special needs of these students, the Kenmare Schoolprovides on-site day care, job training, and job placement services. It even provides aresidential facility for homeless young women and their children.
hotel rooms Leeds These programs succeed because they focus on educating their students in wayswhich are distinctly tailored to their needs. We want to put this same principle into actionthroughout the Jersey City school system.
Bringing Innovation To Jersey City By Establishing Alternative Schools
The Jersey City "Schoolchildren First" Education Act will expand on the success ofthese alternative education initiatives by establishing a pilot program in Jersey City whichwill encourage educators to develop a wide variety of educational programs, and then willempower families by allowing parents to apply to enroll their children in the program thatthey think will best help their children learn. Our legislation will also make each programaccountable for student performance, rather than continue today's approach to ensuringaccountability which simply asks each school to comply with a maze of bureaucratic regulations.
At the heart of the Jersey City "Schoolchildren First" Education Act is a set ofpublic school reforms that will help make our public school system more flexible,accountable, and successful.
hotel a Limerick Our legislation will give teachers and principals the power to design educationalprograms tailored to the needs of children. For example, programs could focus on theneeds of children with language barriers, truancy or discipline problems, readingdifficulties, as well as those who are educationally-gifted or have a special interest inscience, math, or the arts. Numerous different programs could operate out of the sameexisting school facilities and become "schools within a school."
Our legislation would also give parents, teachers, and principals the ability to applyto the State to receive a "charter" to start an autonomous, performance-based school. Charter schools would be required to meet the same rigorous academic standards of anyother public school, but would be managed by a board of trustees rather than by the schooldistrict bureaucracy. Under our proposal, the State Commissioner of Education wouldreserve the right to renew or revoke a school's charter based on its ability to fulfill itscommitment to provide a solid learning environment for our children. Similar charterprograms already successfully operate in California, New Mexico, Massachusetts, andColorado. It's time New Jersey joined these states on the cutting edge of education reform.
Educational Opportunity Grants -- Expanding Choice Without Raising Taxes In addition to these innovative public school reforms, the Jersey City"Schoolchildren First" Education Act would also provide Educational Opportunity Grantsto help parents pay for excellent programs at privately-managed schools. These grants willhelp expand educational opportunities for families by allowing parents to choose from abroader range of programs.
Offering Educational Opportunity Grants to families who choose to send their children to privately managed schools will not increase taxes. In fact, doing so will actuallymake it possible to increase per pupil spending in our public schools at a time when theState Supreme Court has mandated equalized per student funding between rich and poordistricts -- again, without increasing taxes! It will also help alleviate our publicschool over-crowding problem -- again, without increasing taxes!
How is all this possible? As I mentioned previously, the Jersey City public schoolsystem spends approximately $9,000 per year to educate a child, while the average tuitioncost for privately-managed elementary schools in Jersey City is only $1,700, and is just$3,500 for privately-managed high schools. Under my legislation, when a child transfersfrom a public school to a privately managed school, the state aid which Jersey City wasreceiving for that student would be deposited into a grant pool. The local tax dollars thatwere being spent on that child would stay in the public system, to be added to the state andlocal dollars being spent on the students who remain in the public system. This would fund vouchers, increase per-child spendingin the public schools, and decrease over-crowding in the public schools -- all withoutincreasing taxes by one cent.
Meanwhile, because tuition at Jersey City's privately managed schools are so low,the revenue in the grant pool generated by one transfer would be enough to provide Education Opportunity Grants for six private school students. Therefore, therewould be no additional revenue source needed to finance grants not only for the studentstransferring from public to privately managed schools, but also for those students alreadyenrolled in privately managed schools. Replacing "Accountability by Regulation" with "Accountability for Results." Now, I recognize that in order for our education reforms to be successful, we mustmake both our publicly and privately managed schools more accountable to parents. That's why our legislation establishes Parental Information Centers that will provide everyfamily with the facts about the curriculum, policies, and track record of every school andalternative education program in the district. This information center will ensure thatevery parent has access to the facts they need to make an informed decision.
In addition, it is absolutely vital that we create a system where schools, teachers, andparents feel directly accountable for student performance. That's why the Jersey City "Schoolchildren First" Education Act requires the State Commissioner ofEducation to administer assessment tests in core subjects like reading, math, and science atevery participating school. The results of these annual assessment tests, administered atevery grade level, will be used to determine the true effectiveness of various educational programs in our publicly and privately managed schools.
These assessment tests will help determine how effectively a program is workingwith a given child. If one child is not being helped by a given program, the child's parentswill know, and may decide to enroll the child elsewhere. If a program is proveneducationally ineffective with a great number of students, it will be phased out altogether,or if it is a privately managed school, disallowed from continuing to redeem EducationalOpportunity Grants.
A Pilot Program that Leads by Example
Belgium Hotels While my legislation will only establish a pilot school choice program in Jersey City,I think it will benefit all New Jerseyans because it will provide lessons on how learning canbe enhanced everywhere. My legislation will also save taxpayer money because it willdemonstrate that the quality of education in our schools can be improved withoutincreasing taxes.
Well-educated students, increased accountability, parental choice, and no new taxesare the goals of the Jersey City "Schoolchildren First" Education Act. I hope that you will join us in our effort to put New Jersey on the cutting-edge of educationreform, so that we can make the students of today's New Jersey schools successful employers and employees in the competitive business world of tomorrow.