People don't like to be confused with facts....and, of course, the charter doesn't come with a ready-made school building either. Unless the school is part of a larger corporation that runs charters schools, each charter school has to pay for its building out of that very reduced operating budget. It's quite amazing that some charter schools actually succeed.

Oh, yes, another fact. Some charter school teachers are unionized.

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Yet districts and teachers unions still get people to believe them when they howl that charters are draining their budgets.

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Now that's not true. About half the money follows the child. The district schools in JC receive over $17K per child. Charters in JC receive a bit over $8K. Guess who keeps the rest?

Schundler says more charter schools should be granted

Thursday, March 11, 2010
BY GEORGE WIRT
THE MONTCLAIR TIMES

The number of charter schools in New Jersey could increase if the state?s acting education commissioner has his way.

Bret Schundler has been a vocal supporter of charter schools in New Jersey going back to his days as Jersey City mayor in the 1990s. As the acting head of the state Department of Education (DOE), Schundler says he wants to promote the creation of more charters, reversing a recent trend that saw a limited number of applications approved in recent years.

"They (DOE) approved 10 this year. They approved very few last year," Schundler told The Times.

"I think the department wanted to approve more," he said, "but I think there was guidance, perhaps from outside the department, that discouraged too many being approved."

Schundler offered encouragement to grassroots groups such as the Quest Academy Charter School of Montclair, which applied for a charter for the first time this past October, but which was not among the handful of schools that were approved by the DOE.

"There?s still an opportunity. They?re still reviewing applications," Schundler said. "There's a deadline I believe at the end of this month."

For Tracey Williams, a founding member of the Quest Academy group, Schundler?s words were reassuring.

"We?re hopeful, and we?re encouraged," Williams said after learning of Schundler?s comments.

"Our first application was solid. Our second is stronger," Williams said. "We haven?t wavered in our commitment to provide students in Montclair with another option."

The Quest group intends to launch a high school charter school in Montclair for up to 200 students beginning as early as September 2011 with a ninth and 10th grade. The Quest program would feature smaller classes than a typical high school, with a heavy emphasis on new technologies and the arts.

The Quest group is gathering letters of support from Montclair parents interested in having their children attend a charter school. The letter and more information about Quest is available on its Web site, www.questacademynow.org.

Williams said the Quest group wants its charter school to complement the 1,900-student Montclair High School. That?s a quality Schundler indicated would be important to the DOE, which wants to see school districts and charter schools work together in partnerships rather than competing with each other for students.

"Right now, the state is the only authorizer of charters, and sometimes that leads to charters not really having a cooperative relationship with districts," said Schundler.

"One of the things we?d like to do is see if we can give districts the ability to authorize a charter school and have, if you will, a monitoring relationship with the charter school that could breed a much closer relationship," he said.

Schundler also explored that possibility that the charter schools and school districts might be able to develop a business relationship as well.

"In some districts that have, let?s say, surplus space, they might end up having the charter rent space right from them, so instead of the rent going to an outside landlord, the rent would come back to the district as an income stream, " Schundler said.

"You might also have the district be able to provide business services, and that, again, would be an income stream," he said.

"For the charter, it would be less expensive to have the district provide the services than to do it themselves."

Charter schools are public schools operated independently of the local school board, often with a curriculum and educational philosophy different from the other schools in the system.

The money that it costs to educate each student in the school district follows the student who enrolls in the charter school.

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New State Education Commissioner promises help in on the way

Thursday, March 11, 2010
BY GEORGE WIRT
THE MONTCLAIR TIMES
OF THE MONTCLAIR TIMES

New Jersey?s acting education commissioner is sending a hopeful message to hard-pressed school districts? officials, urging them to hang on because help will be on its way from Trenton once the current budget crisis is resolved.

Former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, who has been tabbed by Gov. Chris Christie to head the state Department of Education (DOE), told a gathering of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents 100 suburban school districts including Montclair, that it is unlikely that the districts will receive the same of amount of state aid next year as they received this year.

However, at the same time, Schundler said that the DOE will try to relieve Montclair?s and other districts of the some of the regulatory burdens placed on them by Trenton, which many educators have been blaming for driving up the cost of public education.

"The financial issue is, of course, the big one," said Schundler.

"We?re hoping that, by this time next year, you really do have the budget in balance and that the economy is growing again, and that you have the opportunity with the revenue coming to take some of the pressure off property taxpayers.

"Along with that, we?d like to change some of the regulatory burdens that currently exist on school districts," he noted.

"New Jersey's public education system is amazingly burdened with not just statutes but also regulations," Schundler told The Times.

"They are promulgated for good reason. But when you put them all together, ultimately the totality of it all becomes very counterproductive."

Schundler?s comments were welcomed by many school districts? officials, who have long voiced their frustration with state mandates they say unnecessarily drive up administrative costs at a time when they are scrambling to cope with cuts in state aid and increases in their operating costs.

"The state can begin by reducing some of the onerous mandates imposed on districts, particularly the multiple monitoring and reporting requirements that often overlap," Montclair Schools Superintendent Frank Alvarez said.

Alvarez said streamlining the mandates imposed by the state and monitored by the DOE "would save time and money on our end, as well as theirs."

Officials of the Montclair School District and the state?s more than 500 other districts are still reeling from the Christie administration?s freeze on $475 million in promised state school aid for this current fiscal year, forcing the districts to tap into their surplus funds.

At the time, Christie told a joint meeting of the state Legislature that the move was made necessary by a nearly $2 billion budget gap he inherited from the outgoing Corzine administration.

As the state faces a nearly $12 billion deficit in the fiscal year that begins on July 1, Christie warned that additional cuts are on the horizon.

For Montclair?s 6,500-student public school system, the action meant a nearly $1.9 million loss in funding and forced officials to impose an immediate freeze on new hiring, travel and some other spending.

Meanwhile, local school districts are bracing for reductions of 15 percent or more in funding for the 2010-2011 school year.

During the Montclair Board of Education?s meeting last week, board President John Carlton said that, if the threatened reductions in state aid occur, then the Montclair School District is poised to layoff as many as 60 teachers and support staff and make substantial across-the-board reductions in services affecting all 11 Montclair public schools.

Now that it is clear that the state will be reducing its funds for public education, Carlton said it was time that the district explore generating additional revenues from other sources.

"We have been exploring the idea of a special education program cooperative with other districts," Alvarez said.

"This would allow for some of our students to return to an in-district, least-restrictive-environment setting, save the district money in transportation costs, and generate income by accepting students from other districts."