By Naomi Nix, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
NEWARK — Newark activists and unions are gearing up for another push against Newark Public Schools’ reform strategy.
On Friday, the Newark Students Union and NJ Communities United are working with students at East Side High School to organize a “walk-out” at noon in protest of the district’s decision to put the school through its turnaround program.…
Read MoreBy Adam Clark, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
TRENTON — High ranking New Jersey Democrats are calling on the state to minimize the impact of PARCC exams on teacher evaluations again next school year.
Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), chair of the Senate Education Committee, wrote a letter to Education Commissioner David Hespe this week asking him to keep the weight of PARCC data at 10 percent of teachers’ evaluations next year.…
Read MoreBy Katherine Mangan
Vowing to “take back control” of the Faculty Senate by electing an administration-friendly slate of candidates, an administrator at Kean University has raised eyebrows with an apparent directive to his subordinates to bring him the votes.
[…]James A. Castiglione, president of the Kean Federation of Teachers, sent a message to union members attaching the email from Mr.…
Read MoreNEW YORK ( MainStreet) — Corinthian Colleges , the for-profit chain of colleges which owned Everest, Heald College and WyoTech, is shutting down for good.
The news came Sunday morning by way of a post on the company’s website, announcing that all 28 campuses remaining under the company’s name would close effective immediately. It was a sudden end to what has been a steady process of dismantling one of the country’s largest for-profit schools, and will impact approximately 16,000 students nationwide.…
Read MoreBy John Mooney
Superintendent Anderson, local advisory board are talking, though no substantive progress has been made as of yet.
As the public drama over Newark schools continues to swirl, a private meeting was held in the city’s Gateway Center this past Friday that at least by one account made some progress in the ongoing struggle over the state’s control of the district.…
Read MoreBy Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Rutgers has done a commendable job containing increases in tuition and fees in an age of cutbacks in state aid – a Draconian wallop of 12 percent since Gov. Christie took office, if you consult the figures provided by the NJEA’s Higher Education Committee.
In fact, our State university’s tuition hikes over the last three fiscal years were a mere 1.6, 2.5, and 3.3 percent, which is not terribly unreasonable when compared with increases at the 10 other senior public schools.…
Read MoreHonoring Ronald Rios for the Hubert H. Humphrey Friend of Labor Award and Donna Chiera for the Middlesex and Somerset Counties AFL-CIO Central Labor Council’s Labor Person of the Year Award.
Posted by AFT New Jersey on Sunday, April 26, 2015
By Mary Ellen Cagnassola
The air was thick with tension at the open hearing on the University’s budget last night at the College Avenue Student Center, where students, faculty and members of the Rutgers community made it clear how the University’s financial decisions directly affect them.
[…]The Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers also made its presence known at the hearing, urging the BOG to freeze tuition and not faculty salaries.…
Read MoreBy Monsy Alvarado and Patricia Alex, Staff Writers, The Record
One by one, students stood before members of the Rutgers governing body on Thursday to tell them they could not afford tuition increases at the state institution — which has spent millions on construction, athletics and most recently a huge medical school merger.
Katherine Hood of Jackson, a junior at Rutgers, holds up a sign during the protest at a hearing by the Rutgers Board of Governors on Thursday, April 23, 2015, in New Brunswick.…
Read MoreBy Naomi Nix, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
NEWARK — The Newark Teachers union said Thursday its members will no longer “volunteer” to work extra hours after the school day ends in protest of several of Superintendent Cami Anderson’s reforms.
“I know you have been waiting for this,” John Abeigon, the union’s director of operations, told a crowd of about 50 inside the union’s headquarters.…
Read MoreBy Jonathan Lai
Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., president of Stockton University since 2003, will step down this year, the school announced Wednesday, as it struggles to salvage its proposed Atlantic City Boardwalk campus.
His departure comes amid internal criticism of the university’s governance and a lack of transparency. Voting by faculty and staff concludes Thursday in a referendum on Saatkamp’s leadership.…
Read Moreby Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
Lawmakers want an accounting of what one of the state’s public colleges has spent in its imperiled quest to turn a casino-hotel in Atlantic City into a campus.…
Read MoreBy John Mooney
Language changes tucked into appropriations act drastically hike what some districts will have to pay toward charter school cost
Gov. Chris Christie, just like other governors, focuses on broad themes in his annual state budget address.
But some of the really significant details can be found tucked into the arcane language of the voluminous appropriations act that accompanies each year’s proposed budget.…
Read MoreCONTACT: Nat T. Bender, nbender [@] aftnj.org, 908-377-0393
Students, faculty and staff identify funding surplus in reserve funds
Rutgers students, faculty and staff are decrying excessive spending on athletics and executive compensation while vital academic departments budgets are depleted, calling for more support for students and an investment in staff comparable with faculty. At a Board of Governors budget hearing, activists are calling for more transparency in making decisions about finances including bargaining fair contracts for workers and freezing tuition.…
Read More“New Jersey needs a budget that generates revenue, creates jobs and helps to stimulates the overall economy. On behalf of 30,000 education workers in the state, I welcome the news that Senate President Stephen Sweeney and General Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto are joining our action to fix the unfunded liability created by Governor Christie irresponsibly and illegally skipping pension payments.…
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