A little wonky and off-topic but humor me: Brian Murphy at Talking Points Memo has a thoughtful assessment of the latest revelations about Christiegate, including the release last night by the Governor's Office of an email slamming David Wildstein. Wildstein once went by the moniker "Wally Edge" when he started PolitickerNJ. Murphy used to work for PolitickerNJ and reported to Wally. Here's his bottom line: "[Christie] is in serious trouble, politically and legally."
Back to education:
The Senate Education Committee passed a bill, sponsored by Sen. Ronald Rice, that mandates approval of a school board before closing a school. The bill comes under the category of “bad cases make bad case law,” motivated, as it is, by the latest news from Newark. It's sort of an inverted parent-trigger law in that residents get to keep schools open instead of closing them down. (NJ Spotlight, Star Ledger)
Speaking of well-motivated if poorly-conceived bills, NJ’s Anti-Bullying Task Force is recommending some changes to the Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying regulations.
Mastery School and Uncommon Schools, two highly-regarded charter organizations, will open hybrid charter schools in Camden under the auspices of the Urban Hope Act. Some Camden residents are unhappy.
South Jersey schools are running out of snow days.
“Asbury Park Interim Superintendent Robert Mahon acknowledged that the state’s school-by-school performance reports, released Tuesday, showed very “disappointing” numbers for city schools,” says the Asbury Park Press. Asbury Park and Lakewood were the two lowest-performing Jersey shore schools. Asbury Park City schools are well-known for their total cost per pupil of $28,120 (2013-2014 proposed school year data).
Also see the Asbury Park Press for a discussion of Gov. Christie’s proposal for extending the school calendar.
The Millburn Board of Education held an “Open Forum” on the implementation of the Common Core. Says The Record, “some residents demanded to hear what the district is doing about New Jersey's "centralization of power," and others were concerned with a "whitewashed" or "dumbed down" curriculum in township schools.” At another meeting, Millburn board members responded to concerns about non-resident students sneaking past district boundaries.
“The amount of money that the [Paterson] city school district budgeted on legal expenses per pupil last year exceeded the state average by 66.7 percent, according to a New Jersey Department of Education report.”
Trenton Times: “A state proposal to rebuild crumbling and moldy Trenton Central High School from the ground up received unanimous support from the Trenton school board at their meeting tonight.” Here’s The Trentonian’s coverage.