In October, a coalition of fifty leaders of New Jersey parent, civil rights, and social justice organizations sent a letter to Secretary Duncan, alerting him to two very troubling lessons they saw playing out as a result of the waiver: 1) The absolute lack of community involvement in the programs the State created to replace No Child Left Behind; and 2) The disproportionate, negative impact of these programs on low-income communities of color. Secretary Duncan promised to respond to that letter, but has so far failed to do so.

This message of disempowerment and harm to low-income communities of color as a result of Administration policies was echoed by another coalition of 500 parents and students from 18 cities, which Journey(ed) for Justice to Washington DC on January 29th. They highlighted the disparate negative impact of school closings on communities of color and asked Secretary Duncan to impose a nationwide moratorium on school closings until a more democratic process could be developed. They also asked him to implement a sustainable, community-driven school improvement process rather than the hierarchical programs and policies currently promoted by the US Department of Education.

Unfortunately, no community representatives testified at the February 7th Senate hearing on NCLB waivers. Instead, the Senators heard from current and former state-level officials representing some of the most regressive state waiver proposals. They included Andrew Smarick, a former NJ deputy commissioner of education and vocal proponent of school closings, privatization, and community disempowerment, who helped write New Jersey’s very troubled waiver plan.

Since the historic Brown v. Board ruling of 1954, communities have looked to the federal government to champion a level playing field for all of our children. This objective cannot be accomplished if community voices are shut out of the decision-making process and harmful policies are forced upon communities.

—————–

Save Our Schools NJ is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization of parents and other concerned residents whose more than 10,000 members believe that all NJ children should have access to a high quality public education.

As we begin 2013, we want to thank you for all that you have helped us to accomplish.

In just over two years, Save Our Schools NJ has grown from a handful of parents to more than 9,500 public school supporters across the State. We continue to be a nonpartisan, grassroots group dedicated to ensuring that every child in New Jersey has access to a high-quality public school education.

Our efforts are effective because you have contacted your legislators, written letters to the editor, spoken out in your communities and attended rallies and legislative committee meetings in support of public education.

Another way you can protect public education is by helping to grow our membership. The more members we have, the more we are able to Save Our Schools!

Please share this update with your friends and family members who care about public education and encourage them to sign up for our email alerts, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

If you would like to be more involved in protecting public education, you can become one of Save Our Schools NJ’s organizers – more than fifty volunteers across the State who democratically govern the organization. Email us at info@saveourschoolsnj.org
to find out more.

Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to protect our State’s excellent public schools!
________________________________________
2012 EDUCATION UPDATE

• Virtual Charter Schools & Charter School Regulations
• School Funding
• Charter School Reform
• Vouchers
• High Stakes Testing

Dear Secretary Duncan,

We are writing to express our grave concerns about the negative impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver on New Jersey’s most vulnerable children.

We understand that the waivers were an effort to return more control to the states to improve educational opportunities and outcomes. Unfortunately, here in New Jersey, it is quite clear that the NCLB waiver is being used to apply measures that are more damaging than NCLB would have been, particularly to low-income Black and Latino children.

Below, we detail our most pressing concerns with the program the State is implementing under the waiver: 1) introduction of a punitive accountability system that disproportionately impacts school districts populated by low-income children of color while rewarding selective schools and those populated by wealthier, majority white students; and 2) a process of State intervention that excludes low-income communities of color from substantive input in the planning or implementation of the proposed interventions.

To replace the NCLB framework, the State has adopted a new classification system that will reinforce racial and economic segregation and inequity in New Jersey’s public schools. The classification system uses state standardized tests, graduation rates, and gaps in achievement, to target a group of 75 “Priority” schools and 183 “Focus” schools for dramatic State-mandated intervention, including possible closings and conversions to charter schools. These Priority and Focus Schools serve overwhelmingly Black and Latino, very poor communities, and educate many students who do not speak English as a first language. The Priority schools are concentrated in some of the most distressed communities in the state and have a staggering 24% student mobility rate.

In contrast, the State has classified a group of 122 schools as “Reward” schools, based on high achievement or high levels of growth on state tests. These schools, which are targeted to receive financial bonuses, are located in the highest wealth districts in the state, serve a small percentage of Black and Latino students, have low poverty rates, few English language learners, and little student mobility. Many of these schools are magnet high schools and vocational schools, with highly selective admissions.

The blatant economic and racial inequity built into this classification system harks back to the days when such segregation and inequity were policy objectives for our State.

To accompany the new school classification system, the NJDOE is creating an infrastructure of 5 to 7 Regional Achievement Centers (RACs). The RACs, which are being partially funded by grants from private foundations, will have authority to take over the management of Priority and Focus schools, completely bypassing duly elected or appointed local school boards and district administrations.

The NJDOE is giving the targeted schools two years to reach arbitrary new achievement levels or face sanctions. It is highly improbable that the targeted schools will achieve the increased standards that the State is requiring, particularly as the State is simultaneously imposing severe funding cuts on these same school districts. Should they fail to achieve the increased standards, these schools will be subject to closure or the imposition of private management, not only without substantial community input, but in direct opposition to the wishes of the primarily low-income Black and Latino host communities.

In fact, this lack of participation or engagement of the host communities is evident in all aspects of the NJDOE’s implementation of the waiver proposal, underscoring NJDOE Commissioner Cerf’s expressed belief that fixing schools “isn’t about consensus and collaboration.” Not only have those residents whose children attend the targeted schools been left out of the planning and decision-making process, but so have the local boards of education, and the district administrations. Moreover NJ’s entire waiver plan was adopted with minimal opportunity for public input, no legislative review and without the required regulatory rule-making process mandated by NJ’s Administrative Procedure Act.

The potential end result of NJDOE’s implementation of the waiver, with its lack of transparency, its punitive attack on high-poverty school districts, and its insidious disenfranchisement of communities of color, is the undermining and possible destruction of urban public education, including the systematic dismantling of any semblance of democratic governance.

We also want to highlight the threat posed by the recent granting of an additional Title I waiver to the NJDOE, which relaxes requirements that federal Title I funding be used for its prescribed purpose of addressing the negative effects of poverty on academic performance. Governor Christie has proposed redirecting some Title I funds among schools without regard to the degree of poverty, an explicit departure from federal Title I requirements. This diversion of funding flies in the face of the Title I program’s objectives and would further hinder our ability to meet the needs of our most vulnerable students.

We ask that the US Department of Education immediately suspend its No Child Left Behind and Title I waiver provisions in New Jersey until there is a thorough review of the State’s implementation scheme, especially as it pertains to disparate racial and economic impact and lack of community input.

Time is of the essence. The RACs are due to come on-line this fall and the clock has begun ticking for targeted schools in low-income communities of color.

Respectfully yours,

• Reverend Toby Sanders, President, Trenton Board of Education
• Dr. Jonathan Hodges, Member and former President, Paterson Board of Education
• Rosie Grant, Program Director, Paterson Education Fund
• Julia Sass Rubin, Spokesperson, Save Our Schools NJ and Associate Professor of Policy, Rutgers
• Frank Argote-Freyre, President, Latino Action Network
• William Colon, President, The Latino Institute
• Laverne Harvey, President, Camden Education Association
• David Sciarra, Executive Director, Education Law Center
• Deborah Sagner, Sagner Family Foundation
• Junius Williams, Director, Abbott Leadership Institute
• Kathleen Witcher, President, Irvington NAACP
• Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, Executive Director, New Jersey Citizen Action
• Katie Strom, a Founding Member of NJ Teacher Activists Group (NJ TAG)
• Terry Moore, Save Our Schools March, NJ Information Coordinator
• Donna M. Chiera, President, American Federation of Teachers NJ
• Sharon Smith, Parents Unified for Local School Education (PULSE)
• Michelle Fine, Professor of Psychology, City University of New York
• Ras Baraka, Newark Southward Councilman
• Rev. Dr. Ken J. Gordon Jr., President, Southern Burlington County NAACP and Willingboro Councilman
• Leah Owens, Chairperson, Newark Education Workers (NEW) Caucus
• Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson, Chairperson, Newark Public Schools Advisory Board
• Arnold Williams, Founder and Chairperson, League of Black and Latino Voters
• Jose Delgado, Community Activist and former Camden BOE member
• Teresa Vivar, Executive Director, LAZOS America Unida
• Trina Scordo, Executive Director, New Jersey Communities United
• Gordon MacInnes, Former Assistant Commissioner for Abbott Implementation and NJ State Senator
• Donna Jackson, President and Founder, United Parent Network
• Naomi Johnson-Lafleur, President, Trenton Education Association
• Marcia Marley, President, BlueWaveNJ
• Irene Sterling, President, Paterson Education Fund
• Elease Evans, Chairwoman, New Jersey Black Issues Convention
• Geraldine Carroll, President, Great Schools of New Jersey
• Charles Wowkanech, President, New Jersey State AFL-CIO
• Mary G. Bennett, Retired High School Principal, Coalition for Effective Newark Public Schools
• Reverend Darrell L. Armstrong, Founder, Shiloh CDC, Trenton
• Paul Tractenberg, Professor of Law, Rutgers & Co-Director, Institute on Education Law and Policy
• Wilhelmina Holder, President, and Laura Baker, Board Member, Newark Secondary Parents Council
• Willie Rowe, Vice Chair, Coalition for Effective Newark Public Schools
• Edward Barocas, Acting Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey
• Kevin Walsh, Associate Director, Fair Share Housing Center
• Dierdre Glenn Paul, President, African American Caucus of Montclair State University
• Dr. Tamara Spencer, Literacy Graduate Program Coordinator, ECELE, Montclair State University
• Sterling Waterman, Vice President, Jersey City Board of Education
• Debra Jennings, Executive Co-Director, Statewide Parent Advocacy Network
• James E. Harris, President, New Jersey State Conference of the NAACP
• Sharon Krengel, Facilitator, Our Children/Our Schools Coalition*
• Lorenzo Richardson, President of Concerned Citizens Coalition*
• Monique K. Andrews, President of NJ Vocal Minority*
• Bruce S. Morgan, President, New Brunswick Area Branch NAACP*
• Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director, Statewide Education Organizing Committee*

* Added post October 15, 2012

cc:
President Barack Obama
Governor Chris Christie
The New Jersey Congressional Delegation
The New Jersey State Legislative Delegation
Commissioner Chris Cerf, New Jersey Department of Education
Arcelio Aponte, President, New Jersey State Board of Education  

1). Virtual charter schools have an abysmal performance record.

‘There’s a pretty large gap between virtual and brick-and-mortar [schools],’ said Gary Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement and research at Western Michigan University” and a co-author of a national study of virtual charter schools.

“About 116,000 students were educated in 93 virtual schools — those where instruction is entirely or mainly provided over the Internet — run by private management companies in the 2010-11 school year.

About 27 percent of these schools achieved “adequate yearly progress,” the key federal standard set forth under the No Child Left Behind act to measure academic progress. By comparison, nearly 52 percent of all privately managed brick-and-mortar schools reached that goal, a figure comparable to all public schools nationally.”

Closer to home, a “Stanford University group, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, tracked students in eight virtual schools in Pennsylvania .. comparing them with similar students in regular schools. The study found that “in every subgroup, with significant effects, cyber charter performance is lower.”

Devora Davis, the center’s research manager, said the group’s analysis of Pennsylvania online schools showed that students were slipping. “If they were paired with a traditional public schools student, the public school student kept their place in line, and the cyberstudent moved back five spots,” she said.

2). Virtual charter schools exploit children and taxpayers in order to make money for the for-profit firms that run them

“It’s a promising business.

The largest for-profit virtual charter chain, K12, had revenue of $522 million in 2010, “a 36 percent increase from the prior year, according to securities filings.”

Former Goldman Sachs banker and K12’s founder and CEO Ronald Packard “earned $2.6 million in total compensation.”

This past year, Packard almost doubled his compensation to $5 million.

K12’s academic performance, however, is much less impressive.

“At the Colorado Virtual Academy, which is managed by K12 and has more than 5,000 students, the on-time graduation rate was 12 percent in 2010, compared with 72 percent statewide.

That same year, K12’s Ohio Virtual Academy — whose enrollment tops 9,000 — had a 30 percent on-time graduation rate, compared with a state average of 78 percent.

Last year, about one-third of K12-managed schools met the achievement goals required under the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to Gary Miron, a Western Michigan University professor who called that performance “poor.”

K12.inc also is being sued by its own investors who allege “that defendants misrepresented and/or failed to disclose materially adverse facts about the Company’s business, operations and prospects.

3). Chris Cerf, Acting Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education, has acted outside the law in granting conditional charters to five virtual charter schools.

New Jersey’s charter school law requires that schools have buildings where children are educated, prohibiting virtual charter schools.

If granted final charter by Acting Commissioner Cerf, these five virtual charter schools are scheduled to begin operations in September 2012. Four of these schools would rely on the discredited for-profit firm K12 for content.

One of the five conditionally approved virtual charter schools, the NJ Virtual Academy Charter School, would use K12 for both content and management.

In fact, documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Request, suggest that this nonprofit charter school is a shell game for the for-profit K12, to enable the company to circumvent New Jersey’s charter school law, which prohibits for-profit charter schools.

4). New Jersey school districts and taxpayers will pay exorbitant amounts for this academically failed but very profitable model

Virtual charter schools in New Jersey would be reimbursed at the same rate as brick and mortar charter schools, at 90% of a district’s average per pupil spending. Statewide, this is approximately $15,000 in taxpayer funding coming out of a sending school district’s budget for each student a virtual charter school enrolls.

Since virtual education costs a tiny fraction of what a brick and mortar school costs, this reimbursement level will be very profitable for K12 and the other for-profit companies lining up to benefit at the taxpayer’s expense.

New Jersey school districts would lose the same level of funding when students currently being home-schooled decide to attend a virtual charter school, with no corresponding cost reductions whatsoever.

This has already happened in some districts, which have been notified that parents of home-schooled children, who are being actively recruited by the NJ Virtual Academy Charter School, have signed them up for the 2012-13 academic year.

Please help us stop this scam from coming to New Jersey.

Sign our petition and let policy makers know you do not want virtual charter schools exploiting our children and our tax dollars.

As a result of your efforts, the New Jersey Legislature protected our school funding formula!

This is a major victory that was only possible because of your emails, calls and letters to Legislators!

Our work is not done. Due to shortfalls in the State’s tax revenues, the Legislature did not fully fund the formula, leaving 97% of school districts across the State underfunded by a total of more than $750 million next year.

We will continue fighting for full funding for every child. We also will keep you informed about what is happening in Trenton and how you can take action.

Background on the New Jersey School Funding Formula
New Jersey public schools are funded with a combination of local property taxes and State aid based on income taxes. How much individual districts receive in State aid is based on a formula that factors in the needs of individual children, regardless of where they live. The current school funding formula provides additional funding for children who are very poor, have limited English proficiency, or have special needs, because each of these groups is more expensive to educate.

Between 2010 and 2012, the State underfunded its portion of public school funding by almost $3 billion, requiring communities to raise local property taxes to make up the difference and leaving those districts that did not have the ability to raise property taxes with insufficient resources to educate their children.

Governor Christie’s FY 2013 State Budget proposed to continue dramatically underfunding our public schools, shortchanging 95% of all school districts by more than $2.5 billion over the next 5 years.

The Governor’s FY 2013 State Budget also proposed to change the school funding formula by reducing funding for children who are very poor and/or have limited English proficiency, a population that is growing in all parts of our State.

Save Our Schools NJ members, along with the rest of the Our Children/Our Schools coalition, asked the Legislature to approve a State Budget that funds New Jersey’s public schools as required by the funding formula and rejects the proposed changes to that formula, which would hurt the neediest children in every community. The Legislature responded to these requests by removing the Governor’s proposed changes to the current School funding formula from their proposed budget and the Governor signed the Budget into effect.

The Commissioner’s proposed regulations also would open the door to virtual charter schools, which are not allowed under New Jersey’s charter school law. Virtual charter schools in other states have dramatically underperformed brick-and-mortar schools, while making tremendous profits for the companies that run them.

Giving the Commissioner this much power would significantly undermine local democratic control of public education and would be devastating for traditional public schools and charter schools alike.

Please sign our petition and let the State Board of Education and your legislators know that you want to protect local democratic control of public education.

Legislators are deciding in the next few weeks whether to approve this budget or to fight the school funding shortfalls. They are not hearing from enough public school supporters that our schools must be protected.

Please contact your Senators and Assembly members today to let them know that

1) our schools cannot afford more funding cuts and that
2) you want the school funding formula protected

You can send an e-mail to all three legislators at once using this link or look up your town to find their individual phone numbers here.

Please e-mail us at info@saveourschoolsnj.org once you’re taken action.

Assembly bill 1877 (bill A3852/S2243 last session), which requires local approval before the establishment of new charter schools.

The final vote was 46 yes; 5 abstentions; 27 no; 2 did not vote. See how individual Assembly members voted here.

Assembly bill 2147 (bills A3356/S3005/S3001 last session) was approved by the Assembly Education Committee and is awaiting a vote of the full Assembly. This bill would increase charter school educational and financial accountability and transparency and address the fact that the students at most NJ charter schools do not represent the demographics of their sending districts.

The New Jersey Department of Education (NJ DoE) refused to release to the public the names of reviewers used in the charter school selection process, including turning down Open Public Records Act requests for this data. The NJ DoE released the list of reviewers only after the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed a lawsuit against them, seeking this information.

More critically, the NJ DoE is continuing to deny Open Public Records Act requests and ignore law suits asking for the actual evaluations of individual charter schools, although the DoE provides this information to the charter schools themselves. In contrast, the Federal Department of Education makes all its competitive evaluations readily available to the public.

Without this necessary level of public transparency, it is easier for the NJ DoE Commissioner to use charter schools as political patronage, to reward allies or punish opponents.

This problem was highlighted as the result of a recent law suit filed against the NJ DoE by the Cherry Hill school district, which led to the discovery that Regis Academy, one of the charter schools approved in 2011, received very weak scores from application reviewers. This school also had problems with inaccuracies in its application and faced very strong community opposition.

The idea that certain applicants are favored and that charter schools may be used as patronage, to reward political allies, is also supported by earlier approval rounds. For example, the founder of Regis Academy and four other charter schools approved in 2011 were all members of the Black Ministers Council, whose members meet regularly with Governor Christie to discuss charter schools, and are generally supportive of the Governor’s education agenda.
In fact, every members of the Council who has applied for a charter to date has been approved.

Further undermining the objectivity of the charter school selection process is the fact that many of the individuals who have been hired as charter school reviewers appear to have serious conflicts of interest

“Included in the first reviews were advocates from across New Jersey, including several charter school leaders. The latest round had a more national flavor, including top charter school officials from Colorado, Florida, and Washington, D.C.

By and large, most of the reviewers were connected to the charter school movement either nationally or in New Jersey. Others were either Department of Education staff or active lobbyists or advocates….

Among the better known names in the 2010 round were Derrell Bradford and Shelley Skinner, senior staff to the Better Education for Kids New Jersey, an advocacy group pressing for tenure reform; James Deneen, author, formerly of the Education Testing Service; Kim Chorba, director of the New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families; and Josh Pruzansky of the Orthodox Union. Several New Jersey charter school leaders were also on the list.

[Senator] Gill said yesterday the lists in both years was notably absent of traditional public school educators and community representatives. She also questioned the expense of nearly $125,000 for about two weeks work.

“It underscores the need for the local community to have more of a role in the process,” Gill said. “They have given charter school consultants more say in how money is spent on charter schools than the communities where they are located and will have an impact.”

2)The New Jersey charter school approval process ignores local community wishes

New Jersey is unique in allowing the State’s Department of Education to approve unlimited numbers of new charter schools, with no concern for the wishes of residents who would be required to fund the schools.

Strong community opposition to specific charter schools has repeatedly been ignored by the NJ DoE.

For example, residents of South Brunswick, Princeton, West Windsor, and Plainsboro collected more than 1,200 signatures in one week, asking the NJ DoE not to approve an additional planning year for the Princeton International Academy Charter School, which would be funded by those four communities. Two weeks after receiving the petition, the DoE granted the additional planning year. In granting the additional year, the DoE failed to acknowledge the petition or other demonstrations of strong community resistance to the school, such as hundreds of residents turning out at zoning meetings to voice their opposition.

3) The New Jersey Department of Education assists charter schools that submit weak applications to re-write them, undermining any real selection process

Charter schools that apply unsuccessfully receive technical assistance from the DoE to enable them to submit stronger applications the next time around. This undermines any real selection process as the DoE is not able to determine if the proposed charter school’s founders have the capacity to design a high quality charter school without the DoE’s assistance.

“For those applicants who were not approved, the NJDOE offers a denial interview to provide feedback on weaknesses in the application, share reviewer comments, and offer strategies to improve the application. In the most recent round of applications, two approved applicants had been denied in previous rounds and were able to revise, strengthen and resubmit their applications based on feedback from the NJDOE.”

The founder of the Tikum Olam school, which was rejected multiple times by the DoE, confirmed that she was encouraged to reapply and was provided technical assistance with the application.

“The Tikun Olam school, which would be the state’s first Hebrew language charter high school, was turned down for the second time in January. Founder Sharon Akman of Highland Park said the state Department of Education cited deficiencies, but encouraged her to reapply and is providing tutorial help.”

TAKE ACTION TO FIX THIS BROKEN PROCESS

-Assembly bill 1877 (bill A3852/S2243 last session), which would require local approval before the establishment of new charter schools, and

-Assembly bill 2147 (bills A3356/S3005/S3001 last session), which would increase charter school educational and financial accountability and transparency and address the fact that NJ charter school students do not represent the demographics of their sending districts.

The next step is the full Assembly, which could take these bills up within the month.

For some of the testimony from yesterday and more details on this and other key education-related issues, please follow us on Facebook.

E-mail info@saveourschoolsnj.org with any questions