Easy peasy. Let JC tax its residents to support such computer literacy programs as Princeton and Millburn do. Not only do Princeton and Millburn pay almost 90% of their own school costs, they do so at a far cheaper cost per student than JC, Asbury Park, East Orange/Orange, Camden, and similar schools. Just having JC taxpayers paying their fair share would free up a couple HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS a year to pay for such programs. Why do JC taxpayers refuse to support their own children, that's the question you should answer.

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."

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I'll research it later, but between when I was in high school and my kids were in high school I'd say there was 2-3X the number of non-teaching admin staff (in the same HS). This weighs much more financially than the salary of, say, a superintendent.

Regarding school district administrative costs, that may be explained in large part due to the salary cap for school district superintendents enacted by Governor Christie.

The school superintendent is the highest paid employee in the school distict. All other administrators, from the school business administrator, assistant superintendent, principals, etc. cascade off/scale down off the compensation of its school superintendent.

Since larger school districts have a higher salary cap for its school superintendent, the same becomes true for its contractually negotitated (noncollectively) administrative staff.

The admin costs you list adhere to that principal. That principal also applies to the private sector, in particular for publicly traded companies. CEO salaries were once upon a time reasonably close to the average worker at the firm. It did not rapidly escalate until they were required to publicly disclose in their SEC filings.

The same is true with school superintendents or if you are a sports fan, athletes, which closley watch what the going rate is for compensation in their field. It is a race to the top. That brought in the salary cap by Christie. School super's salaries (contracts) are publicly disclosed in the board of ed meetimg notes.

To mayor Wilhelm, diversity trumps excellence, even if it dumbs education down. In a perverse way, Wilhelm screws children of color by vehemently opposing charter schools, but then wants to champion them by lowering admission standards to elite schools. Go figure.

Not J.C. but could Nyc new plan to segregate all public scools come to this side of the river ? McNair-Academic could be affected if this shows good fortune to our neighbors to the east.
https://afro.com/nyc-mayor-offers-plan ... rsify-elite-high-schools/

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Ok. You don't speak in generalities. You only speak in errors.

Your quote was "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."

When some of NJ's poorest and most heavily-minority districts are K-6s/K-8s, it's hard to see how they are "designed to segregate students which would include poorer and minority students."

Your statement about small districts having more administrative waste is also unfounded.

Jersey City,Total Administrative Costs, $1,878 pp

Let's compare to some of the non-K-12s who are the most active on state aid reform.

Freehold Boro $1,619 pp
Chesterfield $1,303 pp
Red Bank Boro $1,586 pp
Kingsway $1,283 pp

Now let's see, there actually aren't that many non-K-12s who are active on state aid, so I don't need to waste more time giving examples, but your thesis about small districts > administrative waste is wrong.

Your own district of Jersey City, the second largest in NJ, actually has pretty high administrative spending.

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.

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It takes a really intense kind of idiocy and selfishness to bring these insults out of me.

East Newark's superintendent and principal are the same person. The person has two titles because he fulfills two roles, but his salary is roughly the same as what a principal would earn.

East Newark's admin costs per pupil are $1,266.

Jersey City's admin costs per pupil are $1,851.

But keep on making your flat-out wrong assumptions and generalizations JPHurst.

http://www.nj.gov/education/finance/f ... ts/17/2390/UFB17_2390.pdf

http://www.nj.gov/education/finance/f ... ts/17/1200/UFB18_1200.pdf

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.

As an example, Red Bank may be content with its current configuration and yes have a strong home-rule attitude. However, they persistently raise the issue about how they are underfunded with state aid.

To JPHurst's point, it's not "arrant" (arrogant?) nonsense. The state can provide a big financial incentive to consolidate. Do it or no aid for your town.

The state provides financial incentives for municipalities to cut costs by doing shared (joint) service agreements use the state's Regional Efficiency Aid Program.

Red Bank is already well aware of the benefits of consolidation and cost sharing as it contains a REGIONAL high school.

Sure the school funding formula is front n center now, as you correctly pointed out. At some point there will be a tipping point with the NJ home rule mentality due to high taxes in NJ. As bad as it is for municipalities, it is much worse for local public education.

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This is more arrant nonsense from JPHurst.

First, your generalization is unfounded.

Yes, there are some K-6s and K-8s who are wealthy and who want to hoard their wealth (like at the Jersey Shore), but there are other K-6s and K-8s who are very poor, including the ones near you, such as Fairview, East Newark, and Guttenberg.

You accuse K-8s of wanting to segregate their students, but who would these districts merge with to integrate? Their neighbors are also mostly low-income.

In many cases if K-8s merged into their regional districts you'd just have a bigger poor, underaided district, like if Manchester Regional merged w/ Haledon, North Haledon, and Prospect Park.

Second, this is a complete distraction. NJ's most underaided districts are K-12s, such as Bound Brook and Atlantic City.

Third, Steve Sweeney does support the consolidation of non-K-12 districts (unlike Murphy). It isn't a front burner issue for Sweeney like state aid is, but that's because POOR K-8s THEMSELVES DON'T WANT TO MERGE WITH ANYBODY. Contrary to what some outsiders say about what they want, Freehold Boro, East Newark, Red Bank Boro are satisfied with their current configurations.

Fourth, a reason the small, isolated K-8s don't want to merge with anybody is because their academics are actually a lot better than you'd expect based on their demographics and budget crises. IMO, and perhaps the opinions of the BOEs of these districts too, they are very nurturing and tend to do better by their kids than large poor districts do.

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I'm all for this, but see it as unlikely. This kind of "home rule" stuff is what NJ is all about, from PDs to tiny town governments.

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I agree, and you could extend this to county government too. Another problem is that aid NEVER gets reduced to cities that have shrinking enrollment-and JC will have less students enrolled this year than 10 years ago. Sweeney will piss off the NJEA with any consolidation proposals, but they hate him already so he probably doesn't give a rats ass.

To JPHurst's point, Steve Sweeney recently expressed such sentiment and that school district consolidation is necessary.

For instance, New Jersey has over 600 school districts, which is more than it has municipalities at a count of 535.

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Please share with us these cities that keep k-6/8 schools to discriminate-I'll bet those same towns get very little state aid to begin with. List a couple of these towns and we can check with this link to see how much state aid they get.

http://www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2015/

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.

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I have never seen any evidence that this can be done, just witness the recent teacher strike. Even among the teachers there's cognitive dissonance, any of them can rattle off examples of the dysfunction in the system like utterly incompetent teachers, fake disability retirements, and even no-shows, but will still claim they're underpaid. This is a machine designed over decades to make money disappear.

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I tend to think/believe that if it came to that, the city would flex its muscle to get the BOE to find ways to shrink their budget. As it is right now, any measure to make up the budget shortfall through additional taxes would reward the BOE malfeasance and waste that the state and city have enabled for so long.

Yes, a payroll tax could help prevent any pain today, but sooner or later we will need MORE money, and then what? More taxes? They need to get this mess under control, and the sooner the better. There is nothing politicians like more than taxes to fund their special interests and pet projects.

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I'll bet there's no tax you like on principal. The payroll tax idea is a "hail mary" to extract income from the commercial development DT because they already gave away the property tax abatements.

Here's all anyone needs to know about JC schools priorities:

Salaries and Benefits for Operations and Maintenance of Plant rank: 100 out of 101. We pay more than almost any other large district in NJ, which means more than any district in the nation.

Extracurricular Costs: 8 of 101. We're near the bottom in giving kids a reason to be involved in their school. This is what you get when the unions capture the school board.

http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/c ... dist_code2390&maxhits=650

I'm getting the hell out. I don't like payroll taxes on principle. It hits small businesses the most. Screw That!

I'm gloating because we've been warned for years and did nothing.

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Ignoring your interesting mistake(?) about who's governor, why are you gloating? Unlike the reval, this affects all of JC negatively, which from your username, you profess to be a resident of. So who are you saying goodbye to?

This is a mess. There's no doubt in my mind we spend too much because it's been other people's money for decades, but a 25% rate spike in taxes on top of the reval will not be a good thing for the city.

Higher taxes are coming, even if 110% of Jersey City kids were on free lunch.

Complaints about Abbott funding towards Jersey City educating many students from low income families has some merit. And there are many in JC, like 80%+ that qualify for free or reduced price school lunches.

However to counter that, there has been little attention given to how the majority of nj municipalities have not met their COAH obligations, while Jersey City has stepped up in this regard.

NIMBYs should be careful to not rattle the sword too much, it may backfire...

Well, it's finally happened. It's the end. The massive state aid to Jersey City is proposed to end under Democratic Governor Sweeney. Sayonara, assholes.

Union City is also hugely supported by state taxpayers, but they do a much better job with education-the reason being motivated parents. And Union City spends much less per student than JC as well.

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My experience in these matters is limited to three states in which I have resided, and I am always surprised by the stark differences. In Texas (and in other SW states) they have large hispanic populations, and often time there are many students from poor families, so free school lunches and breakfasts are all part of their reality, as well as ESL (not sure about PreK, but I am pretty sure that is not an option today, and it certainly was not some years ago) and they spend a lot less per student on a yearly basis, but their schools are incredibly well maintained, new schools are built regularly to accommodate the population increases, and these new buildings are incredible. Their school districts keep parents involved by making it possible to keep track of your kid's progress and overall you definitely get a lot more for your tax dollar investment. I just don't understand how we are spending so much in NJ and getting so little in return.

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While graft, corruption, and inefficiencies are all a big part (this is JC/Hudson County), don't forget the cost per student factors in mandated PreK, ESL and other aids for children of illegal aliens (as well as some legal immigrants), mandated school breakfast and lunch, etc etc. And you could spend 30K per student and not overcome single parent households, parent apathy, etc.