New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy visited Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Fair Lawn on Feb. 25 to highlight the roughly $700 million he set aside for public schools in his fiscal year 2022 budget.
“There are many historic investments that we will make in the coming year,” he said, adding that a strong education “is the foundation for everything we seek to achieve.”
“After years of chronic underfunding of our classrooms, we’re getting back to where we need to be,” Murphy said. “This is good for our students, this is good for our educators, this is good for our district and school leaders, and this is good for our educational communities.”
He acknowledged that learning loss during the pandemic “is real” and that students in New Jersey “have fallen behind in their studies during this time of remote and hybrid learning.”
On the subject of the digital divide, Murphy said it’s down to 98 students: “Closing this divide is critical to much more than stemming learning loss during this pandemic. It is absolutely vital to ensuring that every student has access to the technology they need for a 21st-century education.”