Dear Public Education Supporter,
Please to ask your legislators to protect our school funding!
New Jersey Education Commissioner Cerf has proposed to cut state aid significantly for:

• low-income children;
• children who are learning English; and
• children with special needs.

These cuts affect almost every school district in the state, especially since the number of low-income and immigrant children and children with special needs is growing all over New Jersey.
Commissioner Cerf’s proposed cuts would mean districts have to eliminate programs, staff and services or raise local property taxes.
The legislature can unilaterally block these proposed cuts just by voting to reject them. On Monday, January 28, the Legislature will take that vote.
Take Action: Please to ask your legislators to reject the Commissioner’s recommendations and protect school funding.
All of our children deserve access to a high quality public education, and our schools deserve the state aid to which they are entitled by law, in order to meet that goal. Our communities should not have to raise property taxes to make that possible.

I believe the growing fixation on high-stakes testing is damaging our public education system. It’s time to make sure that teaching and learning—not testing—drive classroom instruction so that we can give all children the rich, meaningful public education they deserve.

Appropriate assessments are an integral part of a high-quality education system. But an accountability system obsessed with measuring, which punishes teachers and schools, comes at a huge cost. Vital parts of the curriculum—arts, music and physical education, to name a few—are being shortchanged or abandoned because they are not subject to testing. Teachers have been forced to spend too much time on test preparation and data collection, at the expense of more engaging instruction. As a result, our students aren’t getting the opportunities they need to learn how to think critically and creatively, which is essential to a 21st-century education.

I am concerned that high-stakes testing is undermining our students’ educational opportunities. And I am concerned it is limiting our teachers’ ability to teach; many are leaving the profession as a result. I stand with the educators, parents, students and other concerned citizens who are working to restore teaching and learning to its proper role at the forefront of the education process. I believe that learning is more than a test score.

Sign the petition.