State commission to study private school funding
Corzine makes good on campaign pledge to Orthodox voters
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December 23, 2009
Advocates of greater state aid to parochial schools are applauding outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine for making good on a campaign promise.
On Dec. 22, he signed an executive order establishing the Non-Public Education Funding Commission.
Its 23 members will consider the high cost of private school tuitions — most notably in Jewish day schools — and whether those expenses can be abated by grants, charitable incentives, and funding of school equipment “to most effectively utilize state and federal funds within legal boundaries.”
The commission will be cochaired by Assembly Member Gary Schaer (D-Dist. 36) an Orthodox Jew from Passaic, and George Corwell, director of education for the NJ Catholic Conference.
Although Corzine has opposed most state aid to parochial schools as an unconstitutional breach in the separation of church and state, he pledged to appoint such a commission when he met with leaders of the Orthodox Union in October during his unsuccessful reelection campaign.
“I don't think of it as a ‘Corzine commission’; I think of it as a ‘New Jersey commission,’” said Howie Beigelman, the OU’s deputy director of public policy. “If there is something the state ought to be doing and it’s not doing — that is not something that depends on the political will or elected officials to make sure it is going through.”
Corzine, a Democrat, will leave office on Jan. 19.
Gov.-elect Chris Christie, a Republican, assured the Orthodox community during the campaign that he supported tax credits for private school tuitions.
“But the legislature is not necessarily in that same place,” Beigelman told NJ Jewish News. Both the State Senate and the Assembly are controlled by Democrats.
Joining the OU in applauding the governor’s move was Agudath Israel of New Jersey, an organization representing the state’s haredi, or fervently Orthodox, community.
Agudath Israel called it a “burden” that families paying private school tuitions must also pay taxes for public education.
“The parents of non-public school students not only carry the financial burden of their own children’s education, but also — by living in the highest-taxed state in the country — carry the financial burden of public education as well,” wrote Rabbi Josh Pruzansky, the organization’s director, in a press release.
(Forbes magazine lists New Jersey fifth among most-taxed states; Vermont tops the list. In a note to NJJN, Pruzansky said he was citing the Tax Foundation Website, www.taxfoundation.org, where NJ has the highest state/local tax burden in the nation and the highest per capita property tax.)
One solution both Orthodox groups support is a bipartisan bill sponsored by State Sens. Raymond Lesniak (D-Dist. 20) and Thomas Kean Jr. (R-Dist. 21). It would allow corporations to receive tax credits for making donations to nonprofit agencies that provide scholarships for students with family incomes on or near the federal poverty level. The legislation would be launched as a $5 million pilot program. Students in such heavily Orthodox areas as Elizabeth, Passaic, and Lakewood would ostensibly be some of its prime beneficiaries.
“I know that Christie is supportive of the bill,” said Beigelman.
Families with students in Jewish day schools are also looking to expand or clarify publicly funded special education services for children in private schools.
“A lot of parents have to fight with school districts to get everything they are entitled to under the law,” he said.
Pruzansky said he is looking to expand public funding beyond textbook and nursing aid and transportation.
The commission’s members will include the state treasurer, attorney general, and education commissioner; nine representatives from the private school sector; two state legislators; and experts in education and nonprofit grant-writing.
Its tenure expires in June.
One critic of the commission is Paul Tractenberg, a professor at the Rutgers School of Law in Newark. Tractenberg is a long-time champion of public education who has waged court battles on behalf of school funding for low-income communities.
“It is disturbing to see competition between Democrats and Republicans to direct funds in this time of scarce public resources to nonpublic schools,” he told NJJN.
Comments
Israel Teitelbaum
January 01, 2010
As an accomplished businessman Gov. Jon Corzine is surely well informed of the writings of the late, world renowned economist Dr. Milton Friedman on free enterprise and competition - the engine that drives our economy. Friedman applies this to education. “Government ownership and operation of schools alter fundamentally the way the industry is organized. In most industries, consumers are free to buy the product from anyone who offers it for sale, at a price mutually agreed on. In the process, consumers determine how much is produced and by whom and producers have an incentive to satisfy their customers. These competitive private industries are organized from the bottom up. They have been responsible for truly remarkable economic growth, improvements in products and increased efficiency in production.”
He recommends a school voucher system. “The prescription is clear. Change the organization of elementary and secondary schooling from top-down to bottom-up. Convert to a system in which parents choose the schools their children attend—or, more broadly, the educational services their children receive, whether in a brick-and-mortar school or on DVDs or over the Internet or whatever alternative the ingenuity of man can conceive. Parents would pay for educational services with whatever subsidy they receive from the government plus whatever sum they want to add out of their own resources. Producers would be free to enter or leave the industry and would compete to attract students. As in other industries, such a competitive free market would lead to improvements in quality and reductions in cost.“
Had Governor Corzine instituted such a funding system in the four disaster districts that fall under the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey – Camden, Jersey City, Newark and Paterson - we would not be facing an $9.5 billion deficit. Nor would our children be forced to suffer in schools where learning is almost non-existent.
Thankfully, the voters of New Jersey have spoken. Despite being outspent three to one, voters supported school choice candidate Chris Christie, who assured us of his support for parental choice in education. What we need to avoid at all costs is a repeat of Governor Christie Whitman’s “Advisory Panel on School Vouchers,” established in April 1995. They spent the better part of two years holding public hearings around the state and making their recommendations. It was all for naught. The NJEA would not allow vouchers – even as a pilot program.
There never was the need for a panel, nor is there one now. Milton Friedman devoted over 50 years of his life to developing and perfecting the voucher system. He summarized it well in his 2005 article, School Vouchers Turn 50 But the Fight is Just Beginning. “An educational voucher of reasonable size, though less than the current government spending per student, that was available to all students regardless of income or race or religion and that did not prohibit add-ons or impose detailed regulations on start-up service providers would end up helping the poor more than a charity voucher — not instantly, but after a brief period as competition did its work. Just as the breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly led to a revolution in communications, a breakup of the school monopoly would lead to a revolution in schooling.”
If evidence were needed that competition works, this is provided by Caroline Hoxby, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Director, Economics of Education Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She researched the Milwaukee voucher program and reported, ”Schools that faced the most competition from the vouchers improved student achievement radically—by about 0.6 of a standard deviation each year. That is an enormous, almost unheard-of, improvement. Keep in mind the schools in question had had a long history of low achievement. Yet they were able to get their act together quickly. The most threatened schools improved the most, not only compared to other schools in Milwaukee but also compared to other schools in the state of Wisconsin that served poor, urban students. Milwaukee shows what public school administrators can tell you: Schools can improve if they are under serious competition.”
Competition would also reduce costs dramatically. Take for example Pope John Paul II School in Clifton, serving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson. With only 400 of its 800 seats filled, and many of its students on scholarships, the school is being compelled to close. Students will be forced into the public educational system at a cost to taxpayers of over $8 million per year. Were this trend to continue in coming years, until all 172,000 nonpublic students were forced back into the public system, this would cost taxpayers an additional $3.5 billion per year in today’s dollars. Construction costs to accommodate them would exceed $7 billion.
In sharp contrast, a voucher program that cut per-student costs by only 20 percent (many faith based schools cut costs by more than 50 percent), would save New Jersey taxpayers a cool $5 billion. Added to this would be future cost savings in domestic security, courts and jails, which are primarily filled with school drop-outs.
It’s time we stopped chasing red herrings and focused our attention on the real crises in our cities. Our children, schools and communities need to be saved now! Those who delay have the blood of our children on their hands. Those who help achieve equal educational opportunity for every child will be in great company with people like Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Let’s do it for our children.