I'm all for going after administrators as a primary target but these cuts wiLL DECIMATE the teaching ranks in urban districts.
We both know it's not the teachers or the schools. The problem is segregation.
OT - Christie's proposed school funding plan
- Thread starter RUfinal4
- Start date
I'm all for going after administrators as a primary target but these cuts wiLL DECIMATE the teaching ranks in urban districts.
We both know it's not the teachers or the schools. The problem is segregation.
Since, presumably, you teach many black and Latino students, then neither Christie nor most of the Trumpkins here give a crap.
Yeah, pretty sure "not a rich district" is relative. It's sure as hell a rich district compared the ones that will be obliterated.
Can understand the angst of some about larger class size, laying off teachers etc. But when these Abbotts districts spend money on frivolous items they deserve cuts. A few examples:
Long Branch put $12 million worth of new windows in a school. Knocked that school don a year later.
Neptune I could go on all day about. Beautiful swimming center. They have a $60k statue of Neptune in the lobby. Their auditorium could hold Broadway plays, let alone the architecture of their new schools. You know who made all that money that WE paid for in taxes, lawyers, architects, construction firms.
Paterson bought a $600k telescope , vandalized a month later never fixed. BTW they must have no light pollution in Paterson so that telescope would be useful.
Asbury Park, my electricians wife job there was to laminate things, true story. All she did all day was laminate anything that came her way.
I could go on and on. Bottom line is if that money was spent on very low class size, tutoring, etc that might help the students. I agree a lot of those kids have no support at home and have a tough hill to climb. But when my school district has to take away, field trips, after school busses, have to go to larger class sizes and less for all meanwhile our tax money is going to these other schools something has to change.
Frankly I am not sure what the solution is, but to redirect all the money out of the urban districts with no solution is absurd. He could have paired it with some kind of charter expansion or something if only to give the veneer of caring.
OTOH I can think of a million forms of tax relief. Legalize marijuana, legalize prostitution in AC, municipal consolidation...some of mine, but there are others. I don't agree with it, but lots of Rs nationally are looking at VATs and then slashing income taxes- not property taxes and IMO very regressive, but at least it isn't just throwing the poor nothing.
And I am not saying 33k is justified, what I am saying is that giving the same amount of money to educate someone in Asbury and someone in Rumson is false equivalency and we all know it.
If you want to personalize this I will tell you I have tax abatement and no children, I just don't care for race and income baiting and I'm smart enough to know that this will bite all of us ten times over, having a poorly uneducated under class has never done anything for anyone.
I must have missed the bolded...you really think there will be salary cuts? We know where the cuts will be.
The NJ Constitution is not for "most" but all of us. I don't know about you but I didn't chose who I was born to. I am not sure why a child in poverty should have fewer opportunities because of who he or she was born to.
As per Christie himself charters cost more than the 7k, but I always appreciate constitutional analysis from someone who thinks money makes no difference....
Did I need this decision to question the racism of someone who supports a candidate that says a judge born in Indiana is a "Mexican"? This is icing on the cake.
We already have a poorly uneducated lower class. This just does it for less money.
We should never stop throwing money down the bottomless holes. NEVER!
I mentioned some more basic stuff in my response to vkj, but I couldn't help but think of a CT case where their Supreme Court basically said their schools are so segregated they more or less forced a total redistricting to make districts reflect the statewide racial balance...I actually think the litigation is ongoing for decades now.
Not what I would want, but I would not put it past the NJ Supreme Court. I would rather funding be closer examined but also take into account that poorer districts need more aid. I would also like I said in the other post look at other methods of revenue generation.
Yeah and how is that working? You may think you will pay less, if incarceration skyrockets, who pays? Who pays more police? Who pays for hard drugs being circulated?
I mean if you look at towns close to the poorer areas they are already paying.
If anything, look at what happens when urban areas become wealthier....the changes in Asbury have had a really positive effect on the surrounding towns, not sure why we would want to endanger that.
I just went to an event at the Neptune Arts Center. I had a conversation with a gentlemen who was on site representing the Neptune Board of Ed.
I asked how often the center was used? His answer was eye opening. "By the students? Hardly ever". They rent it out for recitals and events. He also said the "Students" hardly ever use or have access to the aquatics center. So 2 multi million dollar boondoggles are not used by the students. Abbott districts are wonderful. I was amazed by the statue of Neptune in the lobby. something like 12,000 pounds of bronze used in the casting.
As others have mentioned. These districts are rotting from the top. The focus is on shiny buildings and spending money just to spend money over education.
But that is what we have right now! If paying per student what an elite prep school coat actually meant the students receiving that level of education then Abbott would have been labeled a success.
Sadly that is nit what we have. Instead these poor students are getting the worst education in the state. All the while the administration in those same districts are giving each huge raises and pissing money away on vanity projects that have zero to do with making sure those kids have even basic skills much less a 30k education.
Whenever anyone points this out they disgustingly race bait using those kids to protect their huge salaries.
Btw, the teachers barely much more at these places. All that extra money is not being used to educate those kids. The results speak for themselves.
This would not solve the problem 100% but it is a huge and important start.
Getting rid of most school districts and having only one per county would be another huge step.
Expanding charter schools in low income neighborhoods would be another huge step.
There are many more. But keeping the system that we have now which only hurts ALL kids in the whole state is sure as hell not one of them. Doing nothing won't solve a damn thing.
I work in an urban district. My salary is decent but nothing special. My classes are over crowded, my supplies are minimal, my technology is non existent, and I do not even have enough desks. The heat and AC finally work in my classroom (didnt for two years) because we had the money to upgrade our heating and cooling system (our boiler was from the early 1900s).
Losing the 78 million my district would lose would be catastrophic. The last few years have been very positive where I work. We have seen a growth in test scores, graduation rates, and a drop in pregnancy rates, drop out rates, and violence (ive gone from breaking up a fight or more a day to only 11 on the year this year). Our biggest step now is improving technology and infrastructure in the district and losing that kind of money will be absolutely brutal the plans we have in the district.
I understand there is mismanagement of some funds, spending on programs we may not need, but a lot of that money gets used correctly where I work. I can not even imagine what we will lose if 78 million dollars in our budget vanishes.
Losing the 78 million my district would lose would be catastrophic. The last few years have been very positive where I work. We have seen a growth in test scores, graduation rates, and a drop in pregnancy rates, drop out rates, and violence (ive gone from breaking up a fight or more a day to only 11 on the year this year). Our biggest step now is improving technology and infrastructure in the district and losing that kind of money will be absolutely brutal the plans we have in the district.
I understand there is mismanagement of some funds, spending on programs we may not need, but a lot of that money gets used correctly where I work. I can not even imagine what we will lose if 78 million dollars in our budget vanishes.
It's not but let's not make believe cutting wasted funding is going to make it any worse. As someone else stared this money isn't going to just teachers. The math doesn't work it's simply a wasteful money pit. The amount of money spent per kid has nothing to do with Asbury Park's resurgence. If AP is doing so great why do they still need all this money?
There is an Asbury Park Charter highschool that spends $17K/student and has a 92% graduation rate. How much of that $33K makes it to the student?
comparing charter schools to public schools is likes apples to oranges.
1. Charter schools can actually kick kids out.
2. They pay teachers nothing.
3. They can be selective on admitting kids.
Love the plan! Too bad he didn't propose it 4-5 years ago. Senator Dorahty has been pushing this for years.
How does teacher salary help your argument? I thought we had to pay teachers 80k, with benefits, and pension to get good teachers? If they don't pay them well then they must suck? Right?
Let's see what the newly improved NJSC says. Christie has a majority of appointments on the bench now.
When did I ever argue any of that? I am a teacher who is anti union. I see terrible teachers make a ton of money and great teachers get fired because they are non tenured.
My argument is that their cost is lower because they pay people less.
I think good teachers deserve to be paid very well. I bust my ass and my kids succeed. I think we deserve good benefits but I am more than willing to pay my share. I hate the pension and would love to not have to put my money into it. I would much rather take that money and put it where I want it to go.
So what you are saying is that the students in the Charter Schools WANT to be educated. I think that is one of the points of the "none spenders" so to speak. All of this money goes into districts where a disproportionate number of students have zero interest (no I don't have hard facts to back this up) in actually getting an education. How else do you explain students getting educated in countries with grass huts and dirt floors? They are often poor, sometimes live in dangerous places, have many obstacles to being educated, but they do. Why is that?
I worded that poorly..I apologize. I Shoukd have said the argument that schools can't get good teachers without top dollar. Personally, I've never had issue with their salary or benefit but felt pension needed reform.
The pension is a joke and I have said that since I started teaching. It is all a scheme that can not survive. I am probably going to lose a ton of money in the long run because it is going to flop.
Why not go all the way and fund schools entirely at the State level on a per student basis. No property or local taxes can be used to fund schools.
Allow vouchers for failing districts and offer incentives for successful school systems to take kids from failing districts
Allow vouchers for failing districts and offer incentives for successful school systems to take kids from failing districts
Just what we need, more money flowing through Trenton. They're the ones that created this mess in the first place.
Exactly. @brianoc has an interesting idea, but giving more money to Trenton is terrifying. But the concept of equal overall funding per student (vs. equal state aid) is something worth discussing.
It meets the constitutional requirement and the voucher process rewards success and punishes failure.
The genie is out of the bottle on money running through Trenton
The genie is out of the bottle on money running through Trenton
Agreed. Also, Charter schools have a lower % of special needs students, and this group of students cost the most to educate. This is one of the main reasons costs are lower at charter schools. And Gef is correct that graduation rates are higher in charter schools not because they are better schools, but because they skim the cream of the crop for the most part, leaving the most disadvantaged kids in the regular public schools. It is an illusion that charter schools are better.
Waste, fraud, and administrations sucking up the money. Much of the money never reaches the classroom (or students).
Similar threads
