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I suspect the people who care about the Katyn monument for its own sake skew conservative. But a lot of the people who got involved in this are doing in order to object to how the mayor handled this or because they object to any measure he takes. The latter category includes both the left and the right.

I do not want to see a street plan that focuses on automobiles at the expense of pedestrians, public transportation, and cyclists.

Having said that, I do not think running unnecessary street sweepers to generate tickets and "gotcha" booting policies are a necessary part of a Complete Streets plan.

Neighborhood Associations run the gamut. VVPA requires regular elections from members unlike others where the directors just reappoint themselves. There are also term limits which requires rotation among leadership.

I no longer live in Van Vorst Park but when I did the meetings were accessible, and anyone who wanted to get involved could.

Do we need to protect our watersheds? Of course. You would not people throwing garbage in the reservoir, dumping chemicals in it, or taking powerboats out on it.

That does not mean that every reservoir has to be secured from the public as if it contains nuclear weapons.

I have a house close to one of NYC's reservoirs. You can walk around it. You can row a boat in it. I am pretty sure you can still fish in it.

Neither Yvonne nor Councilman Boggiano know what they are talking about.

But I am glad that we have a carbon copy of General Jack D. Ripper on our council. Someone has to look out for the water we need to replenish our precious bodily fluids.

Funny how Yvonne never called for independent verification in response to GOP led voter purges.

Actually it's not funny. It's disgusting.

But we now know that Yvonne was a participant in one of the most widespread election frauds in a county known for them.

How many long term abatements have been given out in the last year?

If any were, were they for market rate luxury housing?

Does every crevice of the city have to be built up as soon as possible as much as possible?

I used to live on Monmouth on the other side of Old Colony Mall. I still take my kids to P.S. 3. I go shopping at Ranch 99 and have the occasional craving for Popeyes or a donut from Dunkin Donuts. A while back I used the auto body shop to fix a banged up car for a few hundred bucks that the insurance company insisted was totalled. Point being that I've been around there and still have occasion to go there.

Sure you could spruce up those few blocks and build some townhouses or apartments, but is the city really hurting because they haven't done so yet? If the current landowners are really squatting or speculating that's one thing, but if it's just a question of waiting a couple of years, or maybe building a little smaller, then why give a developer the power of eminent domain at the expense of current owners, residents, and business owners?

We were told that this was a parade of horribles waiting to happen. One critic even tried to link this to school funding AND Katyn by saying the city was spending its own money and moved it to the Waterfront to showcase Mack Cali! Then there was the talk about crime, the inability to host an event of this size, and comparisons to the Bread and Circuses of the Roman Empire.

And after the event, the only complaint is - the fireworks started about 45 minutes late?

Child, please.

We have found a tax abatement that Yvonne will defend!

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There's the problem. By all means I do not want corruption, graft, or waste in Jersey City's public schools. But being covered under Abbott does not turn Jersey City into a "debtor" city that has to be better than its non-Abbott counterparts. Nor does it mean that as the city develops it must forego police, fire, infrastructure, open space, etc and give any surplus over to the schools.

And in any event, until recently Jersey City was run and overseen by the state. Interesting how state monitors were unable to find an excess $75 million that our current board cut.

And do you think that the districts clamoring for more funding are free of corruption, graft, and waste?

As I've noted before, this school board was told there was a $75 million gap. They closed it with no layoffs.

Some of it was cutting unnecessary expenses. Some of it involved sacrifices. Some of it involved taking bold steps in the face of vocal opposition (like saving $13 million by pulling out of the State School Employees health fund).

I am confident other districts could undertake similar measures and recognize spending.

We all talk about corruption in Jersey City. Let's not pretend other districts are free of it. East Newark's Micro-District just hired a superintendent under investigation, for goodness sake. "He's a good fit" said the board. Well ok then!

And do you think that the districts clamoring for more funding are free of corruption, graft, and waste?

As I've noted before, this school board was told there was a $75 million gap. They closed it with no layoffs.

Some of it was cutting unnecessary expenses. Some of it involved sacrifices. Some of it involved taking bold steps in the face of vocal opposition (like saving $13 million by pulling out of the State School Employees health fund).

I am confident other districts could undertake similar measures and recognize spending.

We all talk about corruption in Jersey City. Let's not pretend other districts are free of it. East Newark's Micro-District just hired a superintendent under investigation, for goodness sake. "He's a good fit" said the board. Well ok then!

Any school district, particularly one of Jersey City's size, is going to have to be different things to different people. It needs to take its most talented and accomplished and prepare them for an elite university education. It needs to take those that struggle the most and get them up to proficiency, and possibly the elite level as well! So yes you will have your gifted schools like McNair, alternative programs for those who need it, and everywhere in between.

McNair's success can be celebrated, even as we try to bring up the graduation rates at the other schools. I don't think either of those points affects the needs that were documented in Abbott.

Finally, throughout the various Abbott opinions it has been acknowledged that funding alone will not solve the problem. In the most recent decision Christie tried to reopen the entire line of cases and claim that funding doesn't solve the problem. The court's response is that funding alone wont do it, but funding is a necessary part of it.

The fallacy is that SFRA numbers somehow are the be all and end all of what districts and their students need. It's the same as saying the Supreme Court's opinion is just an "opinion."

The Supreme Court's opinion is based on documented findings of fact and conclusions of law. Similarly, SFRA is a legislative judgment. Can we question the Supreme Court's opinion? Sure, just as we can question the cluster#*@7 that is the SFRA, which tried to cram square pegs into round holes.

And of course, you question the SFRA too. Because Adjustment Aid was made part of the SFRA, so it cannot be counter to its purpose. But you seem to eliminate the parts of it you don't like while proclaiming the sanctity of the rest.

But the mask is slipping off. This is no longer about treating others fairly. It is an attempt to overrule Abbott entirely.
Abbott, along with Mr. Laurel, were the two major civil rights cases in modern New Jersey history. Implement them, completely. And if the state wants to bring others up to par as well, that's fine and good. Not one at the expense of the other.

State Aid Guy, who replaces facts with insults and snarkiness when exposed, doesn't understand what "Appeal To Authority" means. It is a logical fallacy that cites someone else's support for a proposition, with no other evidence, for the truth of the proposition.

It is not an "Appeal to Authority" (in the fallacious sense) to cite a tribunal that has made findings of fact and conclusions of law that create a claim of right.. In this case, the "authority" is being cited because it is a Constitutionally binding NJ Supreme Court decision that made findings of fact and implemented specific mandates (that were never met). It is no different than State Aid Guy pulling numbers out of his tuckus from SFRA and calling them dispositive.

Abbott was not "decided by lawyers." It was decided by Justices. Because, you know, those are the people who are authorized to make such decisions.

And do you think the outlandishly corrupt Steve Sweeney is an "education expert"?

Brown vs. Board of Education was decided in 1964. It is no less relevant today, and there are plenty of schools that are under such decades old decrees.

In any event, the reason it has been so long since Abbott (and it's 1990, not 1985, because Abbott II is the key decision here) is because prior to ordering these mandates, the Courts gave the state legislature every opportunity to develop remedies on their own. It was only in the absence of that that the Court decided to order its own remedies, which the other branches of government followed kicking and screaming, and which they never fully implemented anyway. As Justice LaVecchia explained in 2011.

"It begins with the 1990 decision in Abbott II, and shows the forbearance with which this Court awaited, for years, the State s development of a constitutionally sound method of funding for disadvantaged pupils before specific remedial orders had to be imposed:"

SFRA did not eliminate the obligations in prior Abbott decisions, and was found Constitutional on the basis that it did not prejudice the Abbotts.

And when the state legislature failed to properly fund the school formula, the Supreme Court took it up again in 2011. The Court ruled that a) the legislature was obliged to fully fund the SFRA BUT b) the case that brought the issue to them only gave them jurisdiction over the districts that were covered under Abbott v. Burke. That is, in part, one reason the disparity exists. Personally, I would have preferred that the Court order funding of the whole formula, as did Justice Albin. But then again, it was Jersey City and the other Abbotts that actually did the work to demonstrate the deficiencies in education, proved that the NJ Constitution was violated, and led to the increase in state aid. 205 other school districts now running from behind clamoring "Hey that looks good, I want some too!" is all fine and well, until it interferes with the obligations to those parties that were originally covered under Abbott.

If a payroll tax is imposed it should be across the board.

From the NJ Supreme Court's decision in Abbott v. Burke II.

These are documented findings, not games with spreadsheets. When the legislature passed SFRA, the court subsequently held it permissible, but that did not abolish the obligations to the Abbott districts.. SFRA was designed to help other districts, but not at the expense of those districts that had proven the deficiencies at issue.

Interesting comparison between South Orange/Maplewood and East Orange. Interesting how the former district saw the benefits of consolidation, but not when it came to actually taking on poorer and minority students.

Create the Unified Oranges School District first, then we can figure out how much aid it needs.

I have no problem with other poorer districts making the case that they are, in fact, deprived of the state's constitutional obligation. I also am more inclined to support districts that have been designed to end segregation, like Morris School District, then those who remain segregated. I absolutely oppose SFRA being used to eliminate pre-existing obligations to the districts that proved their case, demonstrated need, and ultimately led to other districts that didn't do that clamoring for "me too."

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"However, the level of education offered to students in some of the poorer urban districts is tragically inadequate. Many opportunities offered to students in richer suburban districts are denied to them. For instance, exposure to computers is necessary to acquire skills to compete in the workplace. In South Orange/Maplewood school district, kindergarteners are introduced to computers; children learn word processing in elementary school; middle school students are offered beginning computer programming; and high school students are offered advanced courses in several programming languages or project-oriented independent studies. Each South
Orange/Maplewood school has a computer lab.

By contrast, many poorer urban districts cannot offer such variety of computer science courses. While Princeton has one computer per eight children, East Orange has one computer per forty three children, and Camden has one computer per fifty-eight children. Camden can offer formal
computer instruction to only 3.4% of its students. In many poorer urban districts, computers are purchased with federal or state categorical funds for use in remedial education programs. Paterson offers no computer education other than computer-assisted basic skills programs.

Further, many of these districts do not have sufficient space to accommodate computer labs. In Jersey City, computer classes are being taught in storage closets. Science education is deficient in some poorer urban districts. Princeton has seven laboratories in its high school, each with built-in equipment. South Brunswick elementary and middle schools
stress hands-on, investigative science programs. However, many poorer urban districts offer science classes in labs built in the 1920's and 1930's, where sinks do not work, equipment such as microscopes is not available, supplies for chemistry or biology classes are insufficient, and hands-on investigative techniques cannot be taught. In Jersey City and Irvington, middle school science classes are taught without provision for laboratory experience. In East Orange middle schools, teachers wheel a science cart into a three-foot-by-six-foot science area for instruction.

The area contains a sink, but no water, gas, or electrical lines.
The disparity in foreign-language programs is dramatic. Montclair's students begin instruction in French or Spanish at the pre-school level. In Princeton's middle school, fifth grade
students must take a half-year of French and a half-year of Spanish. Most sixth graders continue with one of these languages. Many begin a second language in the ninth grade, where four-year programs in German, Italian, Russian, and Latin are offered. French and Spanish are
offered on two tracks, one for students who began instruction in middle school and the other for those who begin in the ninth grade. Advanced placement courses are available. In contrast,
many of the poorer urban schools do not offer upper level foreign language courses, and only begin instruction in high school. Jersey City starts its foreign language program in the ninth grade; Paterson begins it at the tenth grade. Most Jersey City high schools offer only two languages; both of Paterson's high schools offer only Spanish and French, although the two
Paterson high schools share one German teacher and one Latin teacher. Music programs are vastly superior in some richer suburban districts. South Brunswick offers music classes starting in kindergarten; Montclair begins with pre-schoolers. Millburn and South Brunswick offer their middle school students a music curriculum that includes courses
such as guitar, electronic-piano laboratory, and music composition on synthesizers. Princeton offers several performing groups, including bands, choruses, and small ensembles. However, Camden and Paterson do not offer a music course until the fourth grade; only introductory level
music courses are offered in high school. In 1981, Camden eliminated all its elementary school music teachers and provided “helpers” to assist in teaching music. Many poorer urban school districts have inadequate space for instrumental music lessons, bands, and choruses. In one
elementary school in Jersey City, instrumental music lessons are provided in the back of the lunchroom. At lunchtime, the class moves to an area in the school's basement.

Art programs in some poorer urban districts suffer compared to programs in richer suburban districts. In Montclair, the art program begins at the pre-school level; there is an art teacher in every elementary school; every school has at least one art room; and the district has purchased a variety of art equipment, such as a kiln for ceramic artwork. In contrast, art programs in some poorer urban districts are sparse. There are no art classrooms in East Orange elementary
schools, and art teachers, who must travel from class to class, are limited in the forms of art they can teach. Jersey City has an excellent art program for gifted children; however, the
regular art program can now accommodate only 30% of the district's students.

In South Brunswick school district, the industrial-arts program includes an automotive shop, a woodworking shop, a metal shop, a graphics shop, and a greenhouse for a horticultural course. The vocational education program has a computer drafting laboratory and a graphics laboratory with a darkroom. In Camden, state-of-the-art equipment is not purchased; the old equipment in the classrooms is not maintained or repaired. There have even been problems heating the industrial-arts wing of the school.

Physical education programs in some poorer urban districts are deficient. While many richer suburban school districts have flourishing gymnastics, swimming, basketball, baseball, soccer,
lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, and golf teams, with fields, courts, pools, lockers, showers, and gymnasiums, some poorer urban districts cannot offer students such activities. In East Orange High School there are no such sports facilities; the track team practices in the second floor hallway. All of Irvington's elementary schools have no outdoor play space; some of the playgrounds had been converted to faculty parking lots. In a middle school in Paterson, fifthand
sixth-graders play basketball in a room with such a low ceiling that the net is placed at the level appropriate for third-graders.

Many of these poorer urban districts are burdened with teaching basic skills to an overwhelming number of students. They are essentially “basic skills districts.” In 1985, 53% of
Camden's children received remedial education; in East Orange, 41%; in Irvington, 30%. By contrast, only 4% of the students in Millburn school district received remedial education.

A thorough and efficient education also requires adequate physical facilities.vvWe held in Robinson I that “[t]he State's obligation includes ... capital expenditures without
which the required educational opportunity could not be provided.” 62 N.J. at 520, 303 A.2d 273. The Legislature's appropriations for renovation of deteriorating school buildings and construction of new facilities, although substantial, do not approach the estimated $3 billion needed for a complete upgrade of the school facilities in this state.

Many poorer urban districts operate schools that, due to their age and lack of maintenance, are crumbling. These facilities do not provide an environment in which children can learn; indeed, the safety of children in these schools is threatened. For example, in 1986 in Paterson a gymnasium floor collapsed in *363 one school, and in another school the entire building was sinking. According to East Orange's long-range facility plan there are ten schools in immediate need of roof repair, fifteen schools with heating, ventilation or air conditioning problems; two schools that need total roof replacement; nine with electrical system problems; eight with plumbing system problems; thirteen needing structural repairs; seventeen needing patching, plastering or painting; and thirteen needing asbestos removal or containment.

In an elementary school in Paterson, the children eat lunch in a small area in the boiler room area of the basement; remedial classes are taught in a former bathroom. In one Irvington
school, children attend music classes in a storage room and remedial classes in converted closets. At another school in Irvington a coal bin was converted into a classroom. In one
elementary school in East Orange, there is no cafeteria, and the children eat lunch in shifts in the first floor corridor. In one school in Jersey City, built in 1900, the library is a converted
cloakroom; the nurse's office has no bathroom or waiting room; the lighting is inadequate; the bathrooms have no hot water (only the custodial office and nurse's office have hot water); there is water damage inside the building because of cracks in the facade; and the heating system is
inadequate.

In contrast, most schools in richer suburban districts are newer, cleaner, and safer. They provide an environment conducive to learning. They have sufficient space to accommodate the childrens' needs now and in the future. While it is possible that the richest of educations can be
conferred in the rudest of surroundings, the record in this case demonstrates that deficient facilities are conducive to a deficient education.

Thorough and efficient means more than teaching the skills needed to compete in the labor market, as critically important as that may be. It means being able to fulfill one's role as a
citizen, a role that encompasses far more than merely registering to vote. It means the ability to participate fully in society, *364 in the life of one's community, the ability to appreciate music, art, and literature, and the ability to share all of that with friends. As plaintiffs point out in so
many ways, and tellingly, if these courses are not integral to a thorough and efficient education, why do the richer districts invariably offer them? The disparity is dramatic. Alongside these basic-skills districts are school systems offering the broadest range of courses, instruction in numerous languages, sophisticated mathematics, arts, and sciences at a high level, fully equipped laboratories, hands-on computer experience, everything parents seriously concerned for their children's future would want, and everything a child needs. In these richer districts, most of which have some disadvantaged students, one will also find the kind of special attention and
educational help so badly needed in poorer urban districts that offer only basic-skills training. If absolute equality were the constitutional mandate, and “basic skills” sufficient to achieve that mandate, there would be little short of a revolution in the suburban districts when parents learned that basic skills is what their children were entitled to, limited to, and no more."

I don't speak in generalities. I speak in terms of the specific findings that the Abbott court made as to why those districts are entitled to relief, and the specific, and for the most part, unmet, obligations that the state had as a result of those findings.

SFRA didn't change that, as much as those who want to take money from students that were deprived of their state constitutional right to an education wish it did.

Meanwhile. in "underfunded" East Newark....

East Newark should not even be a town, much less have its own school district. But they are paying $145,000 to their super who just resigned his prior job under investigation.

http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/201 ... t.html#incart_river_index

When "stateaidguy" starts insulting people, you know you must be on the right track.

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This board just closed a $75 million gap. Board members also want a forensic audit to get rid of more waste.

I'd like to see other districts make those choices before demanding redistribution. Particularly in K-8 micro districts where you have a superintendent earning six figures to oversee three schools.

I'm not sure why people keep saying that state funds are somehow the suburbs money going to the city. The urban areas are where the jobs are located, and where business that generates sales tax is located. Sure there are some exceptions like the Short Hills Mall, and some income is generated from investments and the like, rather than jobs. But many of those suburbanites demanding their "fair share" commute into NYC, and pay their income tax to NY, not NJ. (The same is true, of course, for Jersey City residents that hop the PATH train in).

Whatever the issues with "fair share" of property taxes going to schools, Jersey City and other urban areas provide the lion's share of funding to the state.

The state should also phase out aid to all k-6 or k-8 districts, and impose a 10% surcharge on such districts until they merge into full k-12 districts. These micro districts create extra layers of administrative waste and are largely designed to segregate students from broader based populations which would include poorer and minority students.

The current board managed to make up a $75 million shortfall.

Other districts should be required to do so before redistributing any aid.

All the more creepy because such people often present themselves as lovers of individual liberty and rail against "collectivism."

Everytime you turn around, there is another group of students doing something amazing at the Reservoir!

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See?

Ok, so the week in review.

1) We will be getting a new park and renovated waterfront paid for by a developer. You know, the entities who, in any other context, we DEMAND pay for things.

2) The statue will be moved to a more appropriate location.

3) The President of Poland will be visiting Jersey City.

4) Fulop is invited as a guest of the Polish government to visit Auschiwtz.

5) People who were fueling the fire and hoping this would be the mayor's downfall have their mouths agape at how well it worked out.

Another sculpture by Pitynski, "The Partisans" was moved from its original location in Boston and rededicated. I don't see why this would be any different.

Saw it tonight. Great show!