Opposing school consolidation

From the Glen Ridge Paper:

Educators start new funding call

Paul Rooney is a lifelong Democrat, but after Wednesday’s Education Forum at the Women’s Club of Glen Ridge, he said he will vote for any Republican who opposes the recommendations recently submitted by the Government Consolidation and Shared Services Committee.

Rooney, a Glen Ridge resident, was among several dozen homeowners from this borough to attend the Board of Education forum, titled “Save Our Schools — Save our Town,” which served two purposes: answering questions about the committee’s proposals, and encouraging residents to lobby against the ideas.

Board of Education President Elisabeth Ginsburg and School District Superintendent Daniel Fishbein fielded questions from concerned residents about what the committees are proposing and what those proposals might mean for Glen Ridge.

Ginsburg said the proposal most likely to have life is Assembly Bill 54 which proposes a super superintendent for each county — a superintendent who would have control of spending in each district, hiring and salary of district superintendents, as well as other duties.

Ginsburg said a super superintendent might veto Glen Ridge’s budget because of the educational offerings that go above and beyond state mandates.

A study released by the New Jersey Department of Education said Glen Ridge spends about $1 million more than it needs to spend in educating its children.

“I am not an alarmist by nature,” said Fishbein, “but leveling down education for the sake of lowering property taxes is not the answer.”

The consolidation committee had originally been interested in consolidating all New Jersey’s school districts into 21 county districts, but that idea has been shelved in favor of a pilot program that would use one voluntary county as an experiment in county-based education administration.

Ginsburg said any promise of savings from consolidation is false.

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7 Responses to Opposing school consolidation

  1. pesche22 says:

    so if it’s left up to the locals property
    taxes continue to go up.

    where does it end? In a BK court for the State
    and Local’s.

  2. metroplexual says:

    Why am I not surprised that locals don’t want to consolidate? As grim pointed out, it could affect local property values. This endeavor is DOA.

  3. Jim says:

    I guess we can expect higher taxes. Could sales tax reach 8% next year /?????

  4. James Bednar says:

    I strongly believe the next tax hike will be to income taxes.

    Combine that with the income-tiered property tax credit I might just need to tell my wife she can’t work anymore. I’m sure she will be very upset.

    jb

  5. James Bednar says:

    Honey,

    If you are reading this from work, that was just a joke, you can’t really quit your job.

    jb

  6. d2b says:

    A super-superintendent?? Sounds like Dean Werner’s double-secret probation. All this will do is create another level of government. The idea should be to get rid of the individual district administration.

    I think that each county should have one superintendent and one CFO. You can keep individual districts, but standardize everything else. If districts standardized as much as possible everybody saves. Countywide purchasing can really cut costs.

    Quality of district has very little to do with money spent. In suburban Philadelphia, districts with poor test scores spend more per-pupil than those with high scores.

  7. Rich Anderson says:

    Mr. Rooney, besides the questionable tactics of changing political parties to achieve economic improvements in our lives, you are disconnected from the process of finding a better way to administer education while saving property taxes. How can you reasonably argue that fewer administrators will not save money? Finally, if you are so worried about saving important local education initiatives, nothing is preventing you from taking up a local collection to satisfy your town’s goals.

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