New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he’s not a bully, but there are plenty of teachers in New Jersey who would disagree, the Washington Post reports. Here’s a small part of the transcript from the press conference that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave on Thursday to proclaim his innocence in the scandal in which some of his aides jammed traffic by shutting down access lanes from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge in order to punish a Democratic mayor…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Chris Christie announces plan to privatize New Jersey public schools
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced a pilot program on Thursday that would allow private companies to run public schools in some of the state’s chronically underperforming school districts, Reuters reports. The public-private partnership would authorize school management organizations to operate five schools, and would target some of the 100,000 New Jersey students now enrolled in 200 chronically failing schools, the governor’s office said…
…Read MoreGovernor thrusts New Jersey to fore on education
Gov. Chris Christie’s tough-on-schools approach in a state that has zealously protected its public schools–and its teachers–has already put him at loggerheads with legislative leaders, unions and some parents in New Jersey, reports the New York Times. And on Tuesday, the governor, a Republican, used his State of the State address to push his education agenda further by calling for an end to teacher tenure, on top of his support for merit pay for teachers based partly on student achievement and adoption of a voucher-like system that would give students in low-performing schools other options…
…Read MoreNew Jersey schools chief fired after Race to the Top gaffe
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fired his education commissioner on Aug. 27, days after it was revealed that a simple mistake on an application form might have cost the state a $400 million Race to the Top grant, reports the Associated Press. The dismissal of Commissioner Bret Schundler comes after New Jersey became the top runner-up for the controversial federal grants, missing out by only a few points. The Star-Ledger of Newark later reported that budget figures for the wrong years were supplied in one section of the application. Christie had defended Schundler on Aug. 25 and blamed the federal Education Department (ED) for considering form over substance. Christie originally said Schundler gave the federal government the missing information during a meeting in Washington this month. But a video released by ED officials Aug. 26 shows that wasn’t the case. “I was extremely disappointed to learn that the videotape of the Race to the Top presentation was not consistent with the information provided to me by the New Jersey Department of Education and which I then conveyed to the people of New Jersey,” Christie said in a statement. “As a result, I ordered an end to Bret Schundler’s service as New Jersey’s Education Commissioner and as a member of my administration.” Schundler said in a telephone interview with the AP that he was disappointed with being dismissed. “I don’t believe that education commissioners are interchangeable any more than governors are,” he said. “We could have been very successful at accelerating reforms in New Jersey.”
…Read MoreN.J. court orders schools to use $475M of reserves
Reuters reports that New Jersey’s schools must spend $475 million of their reserves instead of getting that money from the state, an appeals court ordered on June 14, handing Republican Governor Chris Christie a victory. Christie froze $475 million in state school aid after being confronted with a $2.2 billion deficit in the current budget in February. The Perth Amboy Board of Education sued, arguing that Christie had violated the constitutional separation of powers because the legislature had directed that a school spend its surplus cash in later years…
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