News | American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, AFL-CIO

Oliver and Christie exchange war of words on college grants

May 23, 2013

By Jarrett Renshaw/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON —Gov. Chris Christie says Assembly Speaker’s Sheila Oliver’s concerns about an influential yeshiva and a Princeton seminary getting a share of $1.3 billion in taxpayer funds is more about politics than policy.
Christie and Oliver (D-Essex) have engaged in a war of words over the governor’s decision to award Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood and the Princeton Theological Seminary more than $11 million in construction grants associated with a bond referendum approved by voters in November.

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) and Gov. Chris Christie have sparred over the governor's decision to award more than $11 million to an influential yeshiva and a Princeton seminary John O'Boyle/ THE STAR LEDGER

Oliver — joined by the state’s American Civil Liberties Union — says she is concerned about the constitutionality of public funds going to schools with such narrow admission standards that train rabbis and ministers . But Christie said Oliver has not expressed similar concern for a popular Tuition Aid Grant, or TAG, program that has awarded millions to the yeshiva students since 2000.

“The speaker is one of the biggest proponents of the TAG program in the state, and I approved the TAG grant program as well,” Christie said yesterday. “From 2000-2012, the Beth Medrash Govoha has gotten $46 million in TAG grants. That’s state money. And the speaker has never raised an objection to that. But now all of a sudden, she objects to her own bill.”

But Oliver said she was not aware that yeshiva students were getting TAG money and said now she questions whether that’s appropriate.

“Had I been policing the day-to-day actions of higher education administrators, I certainly would have questioned those expenditures as well,” Oliver said.

Oliver provided TAG eligibility requirements that state students must “not be enrolled in a program leading to a degree in theology or divinity.”

When Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, was provided with the eligibility requirements and asked how yeshiva students qualified for the TAG program , he said simply that the practice dates back years.

“TAG awards have been going to rabbinical college students and students of all other eligible institutions for at least 30 years ,” Drewniak said. “They spanned Governor Kean’s administration and continued through the administrations of Governors Florio, Whitman, Codey, McGreevey and Corzine. BMG only began receiving TAG awards for its students beginning in FY 2000.”

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Signs of the Coming Revolution in America’s Education System

May 23, 2013

By Jeff Bryant

The recent revolt against standardized tests as well as legislative concern over testing corruption are just some of the of the signs of an approaching education “revolution.”

“It’s always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts,” wrote John Tierny inThe Atlantic recently. “I’m not an expert on revolutions,” he continued, “but even I can see that a new one is taking shape in American K-12 public education.”

Tierney pointed to a number of signs of the coming “revolution:”

Teachers refusing to give standardized tests, parents opting their kids out of tests, and students boycotting tests.
Legislators reconsidering testing and expressing concerns about corruption in the testing industry.
Voucher and other “choice” proposals being strongly contested and voted down in states that had been friendly to them.

Tierney linked to a blog post by yours truly, “The Inconvenient Truth of Education Reform,” explaining how the movement known as “education reform” has committed severe harm to the populations it professes to serve while spreading corruption and enriching businesses and political figures.

Echoing Tierney, on the pages of Slate, The Nation, and elsewhere, David Kirp, education professor and author of a popular new book casting doubt on competitive driven, market-based school reform, declared that cheating scandals and parent rebellions over high stakes standardized testing were proof that much ballyhooed reform policies championed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are not “a proven – or even a promising – way to make schools better.”

Kirp declared that mounting evidence from school reform efforts in major U.S. metropolitan areas reveals “it’s a terrible time for advocates of market-driven reform in public education. For more than a decade, their strategy – which makes teachers’ careers turn on student gains in reading and math tests, and promotes competition through charter schools and vouchers – has been the dominant policy mantra. But now the cracks are showing.”

In a legislative view, the Progressive State Network, which supports left-leaning state legislators and monitors legislative policy in state houses, noticed “a backlash is brewing in many states as more and more parents and legislators alike start asking questions about corporate education reform.” The post on PSN’s website referenced Tierney’s article and highlighted a Minnesota bill that eliminates testing requirements for graduation and several states that are embroiled in battles to defeat measures known as the “parent trigger,” which enables private takeovers of public schools.

These observations are not alarmist chatter but well-reasoned, valid conclusions that anti-government collectivist actions related to public school policy are scaling up from isolated protests to a nationwide movement of unified resistance.

The movement is widespread among teachers, students, and parents. It is grassroots driven and way out in front of most journalists and political leaders. And it’s scaling up in intensity.

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Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Colleges and Restoring the American Dream

May 23, 2013

By The Century Foundation Task Force on Preventing Community Colleges from Becoming Separate and Unequal

Education has always been a key driver in our nation’s struggle to promote social mobility and widen the circle of people who can enjoy the American Dream. No set of educational institutions better embodies the promise of equal opportunity than community colleges. Two-year colleges have opened the doors of higher education for low-income and working-class students as never before, and yet, community colleges often lack the resources to provide the conditions for student success. Furthermore, there is a growing racial and economic stratification between two- and four-year colleges, producing harmful consequences. Bridging the Higher Education Divide faces those grave realities in unblinking fashion. Led by co-chairs Anthony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library and former president of Amherst College, and Eduardo Padron, the president of Miami Dade College, the task force recommends ways to reduce the racial and economic stratification and create new outcomes-based funding in higher education, with a much greater emphasis on providing additional public supports based on student needs.

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The Changing Face of Community Colleges

May 23, 2013

By David Leonhardt

Students at community colleges increasingly come from low-income families, as I mention in an article for Thursday’s newspaper about a new report. The trends, in their simplest terms:

Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, “How Increasing College Access Is Increasing Inequality, and What to Do About It,” in “Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College,” ed. Richard D. Kahlenberg (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2010), 136–37, Figures 3.6 and 3.7.

The ethnic breakdown has also changed, as the report, which is being published by The Century Foundation, explains:

Between 1994 and 2006, the white share of the community college population plummeted from 73 percent to 58 percent, while black and Hispanic representation grew from 21 percent to 33 percent, in part reflecting growing diversity in the population as a whole. By contrast, the change was much less dramatic at the most selective four-year colleges during this time period, when the white share dipped just three percentage points (from 78 percent to 75 percent) and the black and Hispanic shares barely moved (from 11 percent to 12 percent).

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Though Enrolling More Poor Students, 2-Year Colleges Get Less of Federal Pie

May 23, 2013

By David Leonhardt

WASHINGTON — Community colleges have received a declining share of government spending on higher education over the last decade even as their student bodies have become poorer and more heavily African-American and Latino, according to a report to be released Thursday.
Related

“Many community colleges end up receiving minimal federal support,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which is publishing the report. “The kids with the greatest needs receive the fewest resources.”

The report argues that colleges have become increasingly separate and unequal, evoking the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which barred racial segregation in elementary and secondary schools. Higher education today, the report says, is stratified between four-year colleges with high graduation rates that serve largely affluent students and community colleges with often dismal graduation rates that serve mostly low-income students.

In 2009, community colleges spent $9,300 per student on educational resources, virtually unchanged from 1999 once inflation was taken into account. Public research universities spent $16,700, up 11 percent from 1999, and private research universities spent $41,000, an increase of 31 percent.

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Common Core teacher and leader survey

May 23, 2013

The surveys were developed to give educators transitioning to the Common Core an opportunity to provide feedback to the State Department of Education as they look to plan further supports for implementing the Common Core. They believe a collaborative effort is essential to the success of this implementation and your voice is greatly needed and appreciated. Thank you for your assistance and support in this effort.

Teacher survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GDZQD32

Leader survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GY7XNXX

N.J. Assembly speaker seeks to block college projects

May 23, 2013

By Jonathan Lai, Inquirer Staff Writer

The leader of the New Jersey Assembly is trying to block the entire list of 176 construction projects at colleges and universities across the state while she seeks answers to how decisions were made on the $1.3 billion in grants.

New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver. (Mel Evans / Associated Press)

“… Many issues concerning the validity of the administration’s specific awards in the approved project lists have come to my attention,” Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D., Essex) wrote Tuesday to Gov. Christie. “Concerns about the process by which the ‘review committee’ made the selections have also been raised.”

Oliver’s objections are focused on $10.6 million slated for Beth Medrash Govoha, an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva in Lakewood.

“These grants may be subject to challenge under the establishment clause of the United States Constitution as a violation of the separation of church and state,” reads a resolution Oliver introduced Monday to reject the statewide list, which includes $118 million for Rowan University and $357 million for Rutgers University.

A $645,323 grant to Princeton Theological Seminary, a predominantly Protestant school, also has been criticized.

Though the funding for the $1.3 billion in projects comes from five sources – each with its own rules – the core of the money comes from the $750 million Building Our Future Bond Act approved by voters in the fall.

The Legislature had 60 days from the time Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle Hendricks presented the list to reject, in full, those to be funded from the bond act, including the grant to the yeshiva.

To be invalidated, the list would have to be rejected by both houses.

“The Senate president does not support holding up 176 projects on New Jersey’s college campuses because of questions regarding only two of them,” Christopher Donnelly, a spokesman for Stephen M. Sweeney (D., Gloucester), said in an e-mail. “He does, however, think that the applications should be made public.”

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Supporters Put Up Big Fight to Save Small School

May 23, 2013

Reflecting a national debate, two planned closures in Newark pit parents, staff and advocates against Christie administration

By John Mooney

Just walk into the tiny front entrance of the Roseville Avenue Elementary School in Newark, and it’s apparent why the school is slated for closure.

Roseville Avenue Elementary School in Newark

Even beyond the fact that the building is 130 years old, there are fewer than 200 students, there is no gym or auditorium, and the cafeteria is barely the size of a small meeting room.

But just walk into Roseville Avenue Elementary School, and talk to teachers and parents, and it also becomes clear why they are fighting back in what has become a growing debate in New Jersey and elsewhere over the closing of urban schools.

The words “caring” and “family” come up a lot at Roseville. So does mistrust of state schools Superintendent Cami Anderson and the governor who appointed her, Chris Christie.

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Photos: Union Leadership Academy Graduation

May 23, 2013

Assemblyman Tom Giblin addresses graduation

AFTNJ staff rep Yolanda Brewer accepts certificate for completing Public Sector Labor Certificate

Union Leadership Academy graduates

State refuses release of grant applications filed by Jewish yeshiva and Christian seminary

May 22, 2013

By Jarrett Renshaw and Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — With controversy continuing to swirl around its list of proposed college construction grants, Christie administration officials are refusing to release copies of applications filed by two religious institutions set to receive public dollars for campus building projects.

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) wrote to Gov. Chris Christie that not releasing information about the application process "is as bewildering as it is unacceptable." John O'Boyle/The-Star-Ledger

The state Secretary of Higher Education’s Office denied a Star-Ledger request, filed under the state’s Open Public Records Act, to view the applications filed by Beth Medrash Govoha and Princeton Theological Seminary for a piece of $1.3 billion in available state grants.

For weeks, lawmakers and civil liberties groups have been questioning why taxpayers are funding construction projects at religious schools that are not open to students of all faiths. Some legislators have also questioned the process Christie administration officials used to select the two schools for grants.

Yesterday, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) called on Gov. Chris Christie to provide documents showing how the grant decisions were made, and she and Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) introduced legislation to block the grants if the administration doesn’t comply.

“For the administration to suggest to the Legislature and the public that the manner in which these funds were allocated is not information we are entitled to have is as bewildering as it is unacceptable,” Oliver wrote in the letter.

But administration officials said releasing copies of the grant applications filed by the religious institutions would jeopardize the competitive process overseen by the state Secretary of Higher Education’s Office.

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