Dear Editor:
The majority of the Jersey City City Council has to learn that sometimes a good idea is a good idea no matter who claims to take credit for it. At the February 7, 2001 meeting, Council members Cavanaugh, Holloway, Donnelly, Bettinger and Smith voted to zero out federal CDBG monies from the charter schools in Jersey City. Directly affected are the schools run by PACO, the Urban League and the Learning Community Charter School housed at the Boy’s Club in Downtown. To hear the tortured justifications offered by Cavanaugh and Smith for denying funding to a chamber full of charter school supporters was almost comical, if it weren’t so tragic. Cavanaugh, who led the pack, claimed that the issue is not charter schools per se, even though they were the only ones de-funded, and Smith claimed that funding for construction costs is illegal, even though the feds have consistently approved these expenditures. To their credit, Holloway, Donnelly and Bettinger kept their views close to their vest at this public meeting.
You see charter schools are public schools. They just happen to be public schools that foster innovation and community and parent control. In Jersey City they are very popular among all races, and indeed proportionately serve the communities found in regular public schools. The Learning Community Charter School, that enrolls my child, just reported the third highest test scores among fourth graders of all public schools in the City. It also solicited CDBG funds in partnership with the Boy’s Club, that is, the Boy’s Club gets the money, improves its property, then leases the space to the school at higher rates so that its own programs can expand. The partnership is perfect, community-based, and builds the capacity of public schools and the recreational programs in our City.
But these are heady, electoral times with a municipal election just months away. Some of the Council gang of five have bigger aspirations; some want to separate themselves from the pack. They and their financial supporters see charter schools as another feather in the mayor’s cap or in their potential rival’s cap. Funny how politics work, just four years ago many of these leaders had no qualms about buddying up to what they perceived to be a winning ticket.
Leadership requires more, however. To stop these schools from growing only places more pressure on the over-crowded public school system. And to hurt the Boy’s Club in the process is even more perverse. Hopefully, there is still time for the Council to reconsider and provide the needed support for our charter schools. It’s time for them to act as responsible leaders and look for another battleground; charter schools have gained too much ground among their own constituents to be derailed now.
Juan Cartagena