To the Editor:
Concerned parents, educators and community members organized a protest outside Governor Christie’s town hall meeting on his school “fair funding” proposal in Bordentown on Tuesday August 23. Governor Christie has spent years underfunding our public schools by six billion dollars since 2010. At the same time, he has given away billions in corporate tax credits. Governor Christie is once again playing politics with the future of the children in this state. New Jersey is still at the top of the list in education compared to other states, despite Christie’s relentless attacks on teachers and students. Governor Christie is pretending to be on the side of taxpayers, yet, he has been shortchanging our local districts by millions since he took office. Governor Christie’s new “fair funding” plan is nothing short of institutional racism. It is apartheid funding, and the people of New Jersey will not allow his dishonest rhetoric to control the conversation on education. Equal funding is not “fair” funding. Our students in high poverty, urban districts need different services and resources than those students in more wealthy, white, suburban districts, and the governor knows it. Despite his claims that students with special needs will still be provided with appropriate services, his inhumane funding formula will guarantee they will not be provided for. This is yet another attempt by the governor to starve our, mostly, students of color, urban schools of the invaluable resources they need so they can be flipped to for-profit charter schools.
GENE WOODS
NJEA Summer Fellows