Charter school foes tell NJ education officials: Enough already
TRENTON - Charter school opponents called for a moratorium on further expansion in New Jersey on Wednesday, as the state Board of Education took up a proposal announced last year by Gov. Christie to ease rules for charter teacher and administrator hiring.
TRENTON - Charter school opponents called for a moratorium on further expansion in New Jersey on Wednesday, as the state Board of Education took up a proposal announced last year by Gov. Christie to ease rules for charter teacher and administrator hiring.
Outside the Department of Education offices in Trenton, more than 50 people stood in opposition to new charter schools. Some argued that creating new rules for charters would spur more expansion - which they said would mean less money for traditional district schools.
"It's already kind of the Wild West," Darcie Cimarusti, president of the Highland Park Board of Education in Middlesex County, said before the protest, noting that local districts don't have any control over the state-approved charters.
While charters are publicly funded, critics said it was unfair to describe them as public schools.
"Public schools are held accountable," Newark NAACP president Deborah Smith-Gregory said at the protest, where a number of people argued that charter schools had resulted in segregated districts. "Public schools must have certified teachers."
Charter backers say the rule changes before the board - which include a pilot program that would let charters hire teachers without traditional certification - would hold the schools accountable. The Department of Education has revised the proposal to allow only charter schools with performance ranked in its first of three tiers to participate in the pilot program, which would run for five years.
Under the program, teachers could be hired by charter schools if they have a bachelor's degree and meet two of the following criteria: Have a 3.0 GPA, pass a content test, pass a basic skills test, or demonstrate relevant experience.
Principals, meanwhile, would no longer need a master's degree to work in charter schools in the pilot program. They would not need to complete a 300-hour internship, and would need only two years of teaching experience, instead of five.
A separate pilot program would also loosen hiring rules for charter school business administrators.
The Department of Education would review all candidate applications that come through the pilot programs.
The changes are necessary to attract "high-quality out-of-state charter operators," which say "flexibility from certification requirements is critical to . . . potentially expanding into New Jersey," according to the department.
Current charter operators also voiced support.
Ian Fallstich, lead administrator at a mathematics and engineering-focused charter school in Jersey City, told board members the school was struggling to find qualified candidates and needed to move quickly to hire qualified candidates, some of whom have Ph.D.s or have taught at community colleges, but don't have certification to teach in public schools.
Among those testifying against the changes was New Jersey Education Association president Wendell Steinhauer, who criticized "a competing and destructive vision . . . of two different public school systems with widely different standards and expectations."
The number of charter school seats has more than doubled under Christie, who has often promoted his support for charters. As of September, 50,328 authorized charter school seats were available to New Jersey students, according to the Department of Education. In the 2009-10 school year - when Christie took office - there were 21,687 students in charter schools.
The charter school landscape in South Jersey includes two in Burlington County and seven in Camden County, six of them in the city of Camden. There are also charters in Atlantic and Cumberland Counties.
Other rule changes proposed by the department and considered by the Board of Education on Wednesday would allow some charter school students to participate in sports offered by their district schools. The rule changes would also let charter schools hold weighted lotteries, which proponents say would give disadvantaged students a greater likelihood of being admitted. Critics say charter schools take fewer disadvantaged students, leaving traditional schools with a harder-to-educate population.
The board, which discussed only the changes Wednesday, could vote during its next meeting in February to post the rules for public comment. If it does, there would be a 60-day period before a final vote could be held.
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