Dear Editor:
Imagine earning only 52 percent of your salary…while doing as good or better than rest of your co-workers. How would you feel? Would you talk to your boss to correct the injustice? Would you look for new job? Would you go to newspaper with this story? This feeling of thorough and objective injustice is what parents and students at Learning Community Charter School (LCCS) and other Jersey City charter schools have felt for the past three years. Since 2007, Jersey City charter schools have only received 52 percent of the funding of the local public schools. In dollar terms, each child in charter school has received $10,300 from the state per year,while his or her peer in public school ‘has earned’ $17,200 per year.
New Jersey’s state original charter schools mandates that charter schools are to get 90 percent of the educational aid of public schools. However, charter schools receive 90 percent of only two portions of the educational funding pie. What the charters sorely miss out on is 90 percent of the over $100 million of dollars in adjustment aid. This aid, thanks to old-fashioned New Jersey state pork and barrel politics, is now kept in the district. All apparently due to legislation quietly passed in Trenton over the 2007 Christmas holiday.
Despite the extreme financial odds placed on all the charter schools, the beautiful silver lining is the great academic success that LCCS and other charter schools have witnessed over the years. For example, in spring 2010, 50 percent of the LCCS 8th grade class was accepted into McNair Academic High School. LCCS out performs the district on all the state standardized tests each year and offers a rich and progressive education. A number of other Jersey City charter schools can speak to similar academic results.
So can anything be done? The state school funding formula determines the amounts/ratios/percentages of money allotted within the adjustment aid and is up for renewal in February 2011. Many charter schools across the state are lobbying their representatives in the state and county legislature -fundraising, blogging, texting and tweeting, writing to newspapers and generally speaking about the issue.
Please support Jersey City charter school parents and concerned local citizens as we rally to correct the funding formula and help create a more equal educational experience for all Jersey City public school children.
Anne Marusic
Parent of two Jersey City public school students