Paul L. Tractenberg
This newspaper’s Aug. 15 editorial (“It’s time to pass scholarship act”) proves that a little knowledge is still a dangerous thing.
It combines misinformation, disinformation and, frankly, no information to reach a dubious conclusion — New Jersey should spend “a few million dollars” on “scholarships/vouchers — whatever you want to call them — as a pilot program because, why not.”…
Read moreMatt Katz, Inquirer Trenton Bureau
Unions representing employees at colleges and universities say Christie has ignored the law that empowered the commission.
“What we considered to be the practice of democracy seems to be breaking down,” Susanna Tardi, a professor at William Paterson University and executive vice president of the American Federation of Teachers in New Jersey, which represents faculty and other staff.…
Read moreBy DIANE D’AMICO Education Writer
Undergraduate tuition and fees at the state’s 10 public colleges will increase an average of 4 percent for the 2011-12 academic year, data compiled by The Press of Atlantic City show.
With no state legislative cap on tuition this year, the increases range from 1.6 percent at Rutgers University to 7.2 percent at New Jersey City University.…
Read moreBY PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER
The Record
The faculty union at Rutgers University is crying foul after a report this week that the school’s athletic department got $27 million in annual subsidies while pay for professors and staff was frozen and student fees were hiked.
Rutgers’ drive to build a big-time football program has soaked up considerable resources over the past decade.…
Read moreJeanette Rundquist/The Star-Ledger
TRENTON — Average pay raises for teachers dropped this year to their lowest ever, the result of the poor economy, a 2 percent cap on property tax increases and the lingering effects of last year’s record cuts in school aid, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association.
In a preliminary analysis of 2011-12 teacher contracts, the association found the average teacher will receive a 3.19 percent raise this year, compared to 3.47 percent last year.…
Read moreBy CHARLES STILE COLUMNIST
Governor Christie never let a mere technicality, such as lack of authority, stop him from imposing his will on the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners.
Christie stood in his bully pulpit and railed against that agency’s waste and patronage and its ridiculous regatta on the Passaic River. He shook the place up. The overpaid executive director quit.…
Read moreA third of school districts will be starting out the year without a contract in place
By John Mooney, August 17 in Education
Against the backdrop of New Jersey’s battles over union rights and collective bargaining, tensions are playing out in local teacher contract talks, too.
More than a third — or nearly 210 at last count — of the state’s school districts will be starting the year without contracts, according to the school boards association in its annual labor update to be released today.…
Read moreRutgers Grows Athletics, Trims Academics
By Curtis Eichelberger and Oliver Staley – Aug 16, 2011 12:00 AM ET
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) — Rutgers University students and alumni talk about about the New Jersey state university’s increased funding for its sports programs amid cuts in the school’s academic budget. The 245-year-old university spent more money on athletics than any other public institution in the six biggest football conferences during the 2009-2010 fiscal year, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.…
Read moreDana Goldstein
This article appeared in the August 29-September 5, 2011 edition of The Nation.
Steven Brill, the journalist and media entrepreneur, has come a long way since he helicoptered onto the education beat in 2009.
That’s when The New Yorker published Brill’s exposé of the New York City “rubber rooms,” where the Department of Education parked the one-twentieth of 1 percent of the city’s 80,000 public school teachers—about forty people—who had been accused of gross negligence and removed from the classroom.…
Acting commissioner Chris Cerf extends olive branch, willing to discuss “orderly transition”
By John Mooney
It took an extra week, but Newark’s school board last night finally met and voted unanimously to formally contest the state’s ongoing control of its schools.
Yet almost at the same time, New Jersey’s acting education commissioner, Chris Cerf, extended an olive branch and said in an interview that he would be willing to sit with the board to discuss the ongoing tensions and the ultimate possibility of what he called an “orderly transition.”…
Read moreCalling for “intellectual social responsibility,” the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday urged academics to focus their research and teaching to help solve global issues, reports Yonhap News Agency, the official news agency of South Korea. “Today, we are facing more complex and interconnected problems that cause so much suffering. And the responsibility to solve major problems lies on intellectuals,” he said during a speech in Seoul to the U.N.…
Read moreThe recent debt crisis is likely to make it even more difficult for college students to pay for their education, according to officials at several New Jersey universities.…
Read moreEven with a slight boost in state aid for the current school year, many districts say class size will still climb
Always an important number for parents, class size is also often a barometer of the fiscal condition of a school system: the tighter the dollars, the fewer the staff, the more students in each classroom.…
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