SOS wrote:
It's scary to think that Yvonne was once a school teacher. Her grammar is atrocious. Mine may be also, but I was never a teacher. A couple of examples:

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Yvonne wrote:
Actually, we pay 17% which is $114 million of the budget. In 2005 we pay $72 million which was 13% of the school budget.

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Yvonne wrote:
I was talking to a tax lawyer who basically do condo work all over NJ. ...

Yvonne wrote:
Actually, we pay 17% which is $114 million of the budget. In 2005 we pay $72 million which was 13% of the school budget.

Yvonne wrote:
I was talking to a tax lawyer who basically do condo work all over NJ. ...

brewster wrote:
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stateaidguy wrote:
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brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.

I'm glad you mentioned charters because Jersey City charters, ironically, are disadvantaged by the fact that Jersey City receives so much Adjustment Aid.

Charter school funding is more complex than state aid, but charter schools founded after 2008 (when SFRA was passed), do not receive Adjustment Aid.

I'm not 100% why this is. I don't know if it was legislative oversight, NJEA influence, a sincere belief that since Adjustment Aid was "hold harmless aid" that new schools didn't need to be held harmless since they had not existed pre-SFRA in the first place.

Anyway, as a consequence of Jersey City's non-transference of Adjustment Aid to charter schools, some of Jersey City's charters are among the lowest funded in NJ.

The following are NJ's 15 lowest spending charter schools.

School Per Pupil Spending 2015-16
BRIDGETON PUBLIC CHARTER $9,276
JC GREAT FUTURES CHARTER SCH $9,197
COLLEGE ACHIEVE CENTRAL C $9,177
JC THE ETHICAL COMMUNITY CHA $8,947
JC JERSEY CITY COMMUNITY CHA $8,894
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF $8,845
RIVERBANK CHARTER SCHOOL $8,682
HOBOKEN DUAL LANGUAGE CHA $8,677
THOMAS EDISON ENERGYSMART $8,395
MILLVILLE PUBLIC CHARTER $7,943
JC JERSEY CITY GLOBAL CS $7,838
JC EMPOWERMENT ACADEMY CHART $7,744
COMPASS ACADEMY CHARTER S $7,653
JC LEARNING COMMUNITY CHARTE $7,541
VINELAND PUBLIC CHARTER S $7,435

Some of the other lowest spending charters are also in big Adjustment Aid districts, like Vineland. (who gets $34 mil in Adjustment Aid), Millville (who gets $12.5 mil in Adjustment Aid), Hoboken ($5.6 mil in Adjustment Aid)

Some of the other lowest spending charters are in very low spending poor non-Abbotts and thus the host districts have very little to transfer to charters in the first place.

Anti-charter people always point out that charters have fewer poor kids than district schools, and that's true on average, but JC's low-spending charters can have pretty high FRL rates too. Several are above the JC district schools' average.

Beloved Community is 83% FRL (for 2013-14). Ethical Community is 32%. JC Community Charter is 85% FRL. Learning Community is 35% FRL. (I couldn't find Great Futures.)

If Jersey City's Adjustment Aid were gradually replaced by local taxes, JC's charter schools would come closer to matching the spending of JC's district schools. (my guess is that JC's leadership would rather change the charter funding law than the state aid distribution, which is also reasonable from their perspective.)

Again, charter school funding is very complex, but since post-2008 charters don't get Adjustment Aid, JC's charters are disadvantaged by the status quo.

More fascinating info. I might point out that Learning Community, where my kids attended, is near the bottom of the funding list, but was founded in the 90's. It's one of the highest performing k-8's in the city on a fraction of the funds while it is also paying it's own mortgage on it's building.

stateaidguy wrote:
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brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.

I'm glad you mentioned charters because Jersey City charters, ironically, are disadvantaged by the fact that Jersey City receives so much Adjustment Aid.

Charter school funding is more complex than state aid, but charter schools founded after 2008 (when SFRA was passed), do not receive Adjustment Aid.

I'm not 100% why this is. I don't know if it was legislative oversight, NJEA influence, a sincere belief that since Adjustment Aid was "hold harmless aid" that new schools didn't need to be held harmless since they had not existed pre-SFRA in the first place.

Anyway, as a consequence of Jersey City's non-transference of Adjustment Aid to charter schools, some of Jersey City's charters are among the lowest funded in NJ.

The following are NJ's 15 lowest spending charter schools.

School Per Pupil Spending 2015-16
BRIDGETON PUBLIC CHARTER $9,276
JC GREAT FUTURES CHARTER SCH $9,197
COLLEGE ACHIEVE CENTRAL C $9,177
JC THE ETHICAL COMMUNITY CHA $8,947
JC JERSEY CITY COMMUNITY CHA $8,894
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF $8,845
RIVERBANK CHARTER SCHOOL $8,682
HOBOKEN DUAL LANGUAGE CHA $8,677
THOMAS EDISON ENERGYSMART $8,395
MILLVILLE PUBLIC CHARTER $7,943
JC JERSEY CITY GLOBAL CS $7,838
JC EMPOWERMENT ACADEMY CHART $7,744
COMPASS ACADEMY CHARTER S $7,653
JC LEARNING COMMUNITY CHARTE $7,541
VINELAND PUBLIC CHARTER S $7,435

Some of the other lowest spending charters are also in big Adjustment Aid districts, like Vineland. (who gets $34 mil in Adjustment Aid), Millville (who gets $12.5 mil in Adjustment Aid), Hoboken ($5.6 mil in Adjustment Aid)

Some of the other lowest spending charters are in very low spending poor non-Abbotts and thus the host districts have very little to transfer to charters in the first place.

Anti-charter people always point out that charters have fewer poor kids than district schools, and that's true on average, but JC's low-spending charters can have pretty high FRL rates too. Several are above the JC district schools' average.

Beloved Community is 83% FRL (for 2013-14). Ethical Community is 32%. JC Community Charter is 85% FRL. Learning Community is 35% FRL. (I couldn't find Great Futures.)

If Jersey City's Adjustment Aid were gradually replaced by local taxes, JC's charter schools would come closer to matching the spending of JC's district schools. (my guess is that JC's leadership would rather change the charter funding law than the state aid distribution, which is also reasonable from their perspective.)

Again, charter school funding is very complex, but since post-2008 charters don't get Adjustment Aid, JC's charters are disadvantaged by the status quo.

brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.

brewster wrote:
What about costs outside of Hudson County? Are they as variable?

What if we assumed from your data the utterly absurd notion that $1000 of every JC student's allotment is being sucked away by overstaffing, overpaying, padded OT, sweetheart contracting, etc. It's obviously absurd because things like that NEVER happen in JC. But if they did, how could we know without forensic accounting? It seems like these things are always set up so you can never compare apples to apples.

Suntime wrote:
Jcguys - i already have done the research and will be happy to share Specific information by pm, for anyone that is interested in helping with rectifying this problem. I was merely telling stateaidguy that before he claims there is no problem with lead in the jc school system, he should do better research. He obviously does not have any children in the jcps.

Monroe wrote:
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Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.

Since Jersey City pays only 16% of school costs, the answer is simple-raise more revenue locally to fund the fixes.

Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.

stateaidguy wrote:
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JCGuys wrote:
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T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?

I've seen this argument about municipal and school district consolidation before. It's theoretically compelling, but when
researchers study tax rates and the cost of government per person on the municipal level, the cost per government are effectively the same for the smallest towns and the largest towns, with the lowest costs per person being in municipalities that have populations between 3,601 and 5,150.

Suntime wrote:
Stateaidguy - you need to do the research on lead. the problem with lead in jc schools makes newark look like child's play - no pun intended. It has been known about by local, state and federal officials since at least 2005. Some school faucets have tested at astronomical levels of lead. Its widespread throughout the older schools in the district. The solution has been to use bottled water and microwavable food. It is a cost issue - the city says they have no control over it. Thr board of ed says they dont have the money to replace the pipes and parts leaching the lead. The state is offering nothing to fix these schools. Its a disgrace, with no end in sight. Recently the playground to a local school was shut down due to lead contamination from the turnpike.
And I've seen the flooding. Some of these very old schools are in a terrible state of disrepair.

brewster wrote:
So, if I understand this all correctly, SFRA takes the aggregate personal income of the city, and determines the fair local contribution from that. And we don't collect that because of too low a rate and a large chunk of our wealthiest population live in PILOT buildings and don't effectively contribute even though their income skews the data?

Where does the levy on commercial operations fit in? I recall hearing Secaucus had low residential taxes due to the preponderance of commercial property, but theirs is only a hair lower than ours.

brewster wrote:
SAG, is there a source of line item comparisons of how districts spend their money? I once tried to dig into the "simplified" version of JC's school budget to find out how much is spent on special ed, and it was absolutely impenetrable. They used terms that google returned no definitions for!

We hear you say we are overfunded, yet see no evidence of it. I do hear anecdotes of "we don't have enough money for that" when talking of common suburban school curriculum or infrastructure.

I have no problem believing it's sucked up by the vast bureaucracy, but I'd like to see evidence of it. I do understand there's so many variables, I don't expect clear answers. But even things like if the average buildings are 50 years older can make a huge difference in spending, can't they?

SAG, is there a source of line item comparisons of how districts spend their money? I once tried to dig into the "simplified" version of JC's school budget to find out how much is spent on special ed, and it was absolutely impenetrable. They used terms that google returned no definitions for!

JCGuys wrote:
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T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?

T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?

Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.

Monroe wrote:
What you're seeing is the realization, on a bi-partisan level, of the unfairness of education funding. That's driving it, finally it's not only the wealthy suburbs but the under aided towns run by Democrats taking action. When the People's Republic of Maplewood/South Orange starts to jaw about it you know it's not a Christie move.