Opposition Muted as Christie’s School-Voucher Pilot Makes Public Debut

Scholarships up to $10,000 would let 200 low-income students switch to public or private schools elsewhere

By John Mooney

There were plenty of questions but little outright opposition as Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed school-vouchers program got its first public airing yesterday.

The controversial issue was a prime topic as the Assembly budget committee held a hearing on Christie’s education budget for fiscal 2014. Education Commissioner Chris Cerf testified for close to five hours on a range of topics.

Christie’s proposed $97 million increase in state aid also got plenty of attention, especially after recent revelations that any increases for districts will be blunted by fees charged by the state for school-construction grants.

In the end, 267 districts – close to half of all those statewide — will see net losses in the money they will receive from the state next year, after the assessments are factored in, Cerf confirmed yesterday.