Speech about the S2 funding non sense in NJ
Toms River. Fifteen thousand kids. Eighteen schools. Lowest-cost large district in the state. They already cut two hundred fifty jobs. Sold the administration building. Cut supplies. Grew class sizes. Then Trenton took another hundred and seventy-five million under S2, slammed a thirteen-percent tax hike on the board when they voted no, and told them summer school for struggling students was optional, unless taxpayers bled more. Bankruptcy talk. Chapter 9. That is a district being punished for running lean
Newark. One point three billion from people who do not live there. Eighty-three percent of a one-point-six-seven-billion budget. And the shopping list is a joke. Two hundred twenty-five thousand on balloon vendors. Red carpets. Velvet ropes. A staff carnival at a wedding hall — DJ, bounce houses, buffet — until the monitor clawed the state aid back. A half-billion lease on a building for under seven hundred students. Then seven hundred thousand dollars to Whitney Houston’s mortician to teach hotels and tourism. Degrees in embalming and divinity. Not hospitality. Not a real career credential. At a vocational school where fewer than one in ten kids pass math.
Paterson takes six hundred nineteen million, is in line for thirty-seven million more, and still owes the power company five point four million dating to twenty fifteen. They cannot pay the light bill. The check still comes.
Scores? Newark: thirty-four percent pass English. Twenty-one percent pass math. The state is fifty-three and forty-one. Graduation math: thirty-one percent actually pass. Two hundred seventy million in COVID money and there third-grade reading still is in the toilet, and yet again this district is flush with money year after year, while others suffer
We are talking about a little bit of money here folks, Newark gets $1.3B from outside its district, over 80%, that cost each NJ household over $400 dollars a year, just for Newark its nuts
We need to be honest about what has happened with this school funding
It is not about kids. It is not about poverty. It has been a transfer from towns that tighten belts to cities that throw parties with the extra cash, then call the result fairness
Performance should be a metric. Proficiency. Growth. Lights that stay on. A district that cannot teach four out of five children math shouldn't get a ballon budget while another district sold its headquarters and cutting down trees just to stay open
We should be Funding results. Or the admission needs to be the state of NJ was never funding education at all
Thoughts on the NJ school budget (S2) meeting
They said 18 months for things to happen, towns are struggling now, how the hell is this going to help them? Made a speech as well comparing Newark to Tom's River, there was at most 30 people there overall. Just hope this accelerates more, the old funding is awful and has hurt so much of our Red areas