Bergen Record | American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, AFL-CIO

Stile: University overhaul includes prize for kingpin

January 27, 2012

Charles Stile, Columnist

New Jersey’s Uni-Government – Republican Governor Christie’s alliance with Democratic Party power brokers – has run the table in Trenton for the past two years.

It is the source of Christie’s “bipartisan” success. It has also maintained a rare period of detente between the Democratic factions in the northern and southern parts of the state.

That axis of pragmatic power ground out another long-sought byproduct Wednesday, a sweeping plan to restructure New Jersey’s university system, which includes a valuable prize for South Jersey Democratic kingpin George Norcross, whom many consider one of the most powerful, unelected charter members of the Uni-Government.

The plan calls for a dramatic upgrade turning Rowan University, once a sleepy teacher’s college in Glassboro, into a thriving South Jersey public research university.

Under the plan, Rowan would take over Rutgers University-Camden, which means Rowan gets its law school, business school and its Camden campus. Those new assets would join the Rowan roster just as it prepares to launch a medical school affiliated with the Camden-based Cooper University Health System. Norcross is chairman of Cooper’s board of trustees.

But South Jersey’s gain is also North and Central Jersey’s loss, which could threaten the delicate Uni-Government balance that exerts itself in the Legislature. Under the plan, the Newark-based University of Medicine and Dentistry would be dismantled, with some its properties spun off to operate autonomously, and others consolidated under the name New Jersey Health Sciences University. The state would retain control of University Hospital, but through a yet-to-be-named partnership with a private firm.

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Fired BCC college chief lands job

January 09, 2012

BY PATRICIA ALEX, STAFF WRITER, The Record

Former Bergen Community College President G. Jeremiah “Jerry” Ryan, ousted last summer after a power struggle with County Executive Kathleen Donovan, has been appointed a senior vice president at the 16-school Louisiana Community and Technical College System.

Jerry Ryan

Ryan will be in charge of workforce, career and technical education for the system, according to a press release issued by the organization last week. In that role he will work closely with the business community.

Ryan was known as a consummate schmoozer during his four-year tenure at Bergen, and was an outgoing promoter of the state’s largest community college. He presided over enrollment growth and capital expansion at BCC, including the opening of the Meadowlands campus in Lyndhurst.

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Professor: Educating New Jersey’s impoverished kids costs more

January 02, 2012

BY GEOFF MULVIHILL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
One in a periodic series on efforts to remake New Jersey’s education system.

NEW BRUNSWICK — A scholar who studies and blogs about education finance says improving the state’s urban schools will take more money — and that merit pay is not likely to help.

Bruce Baker, an associate professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, spoke with The Associated Press for an occasional series of interviews on public education reform in New Jersey.

Baker’s work is more often cited by those skeptical about the so-called reform movement in education. He’s skeptical about whether students’ standardized test scores should be incorporated into decisions about which teachers should be laid off and which should make more money. Those are among ideas promoted by President Obama, Gov. Chris Christie and New Jersey Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf.

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State rejects Online Charter School

December 14, 2011

BY HOWARD PROSNITZ, STAFF WRITER
Teaneck Suburbanite

TEANECK – The Department of Education has rejected an application for an online charter school that would have been based in Teaneck and would have offered instruction to as many as 1,000 students throughout the state.

In a Dec. 12 letter to Teaneck resident Jason Flynn, one of the chief applicants for the Garden State Virtual Charter School, DOE Commissioner Christopher Cerf wrote that the application had undergone a comprehensive review by the DOE but was being denied “because of deficiencies identified during the charter school application process.”

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20 protest online charter plan

December 10, 2011

BY MELISSA HAYES, STAFF WRITER
The Record

KEVIN R. WEXLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER School trustee Margot Fisher, second from left, and others opposing a charter school plan.

TEANECK — Chanting “We want a say in what we pay,” about 20 people protested a proposed virtual charter school outside the National Guard Armory while Governor Christie held a news conference inside.

Board of Education Vice President Gervonn Rice said she hoped to lobby the governor about reforming charter school legislation to allow voters in local districts to weigh in on the creation of charter schools and to ensure that they are held to the same standards as traditional public schools.

“It should be the same level of accountability,” Rice said.

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Teaneck schools ask state to block virtual charter

December 07, 2011

BY LESLIE BRODY, STAFF WRITER, The Record

TEANECK — School officials have taken legal action asking acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf to block a proposed virtual charter school that critics charge will decimate the district’s budget.
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Their petition also seeks an order compelling the state Department of Education to rescind an October letter noting that the district might have to pay $15.4 million to the charter. And Teaneck wants a moratorium on state approvals of any online charters until New Jersey adopts a fair way to fund them.

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Opponents of NJ school vouchers hold rally

December 01, 2011

Associated Press

JERSEY CITY— Education activists and parents rallied in Jersey City on Wednesday against a bill that would allow the use of taxpayer-funded vouchers for religious and private schools, calling it “a back door way to privatization” of the state’s public schools.

Several parents said the program would drain resources from poorer districts and undercut existing initiatives aimed at improving public schools.

Parent Luz Mayi, who said her seven children, ages 14 to 35, attended both parochial and public schools in Jersey City, said supporters of the voucher program were disingenuous in trying to sell it as an attempt to give parents school choice. Mayi said the proposal wouldn’t allow children with less-than-stellar grades, special needs, language barriers or other obstacles to be accepted at any school.

“It would hurt children in public schools,” Mayi said. “To me, that’s a crime, and you’re abusing people who can’t defend themselves: children.”

At issue is a pilot program called The Opportunity Scholarship Act, supported by Republican Gov. Chris Christie, which would permit about 40,000 students in 13 low-income districts to apply for scholarship vouchers to attend private or parochial schools.

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