My Saturday post on Gov. Chris Christie's proposed "Fairness Formula" attracted some attention, but now that the holiday is over, I'm hoping more people will read it.
Christie made a similar bid for changing school funding in 2011, but nothing came of it. Plainfield contributed the same local tax levy amount to school costs, $17,683,906, from 1992 until the 2008-09 school year, when the state mandated a 4 percent increase.
From then on out, annual local tax levy increases were meant to move toward a $33 million "fair share," although state aid subsequently increased. The budget question on the April 19 ballot was for a local tax levy of $24,295,492, toward a total budget of $189,131,039. Funding includes federal and grant revenues in addition to state and local contributions.
Christie is proposing state funding of $6,599 per-pupil, in contrast to Plainfield's projected per-pupil cost of $15,566 for the 2016-17 school year.
Please take a look at Saturday's post (click on link above), which also contains a statement from the New Jersey School Boards Association on Christie's proposal.
--Bernice
I can't believe we spend so much more on our kids than successful schools who don't get additional state aid and our schools are not that good. The BOE needs to look for waste and account for all of this money. If I lived outside of Plainfield I'd be upset. The Abbot system hasn't worked, not if you look for results, so I can't see throwing money down a dark hole. How can we get our schools to be better for our kids and not waste so much money. Does the Plainfield school system need such a top heavy administration?
ReplyDeleteWhy everyone kept blaming the school. Blame the kids in the school, and those of you that decide to sent your kids somewhere else. If you have a bunch of trouble kids in one place, you really think anything good will come out it. If you have bunch of kids whom parents are not involved in their life is there anything good coming out of it. Stop blaming the school. My kids are in plainfield public school, and i bet you they will out perform any child in scothplains.get rid of the hood rats in plainfield like all other towns do and see how well the school test score will look like.
ReplyDeleteYou sound and write like one of those “hood rats”. Get a grip, every child deserves a quality education, especially black children whose ancestors was denied an education for far to long. We deserve reparation and if it comes in the form of the government putting more education dollars in urban districts, so be it.
DeleteRCH
Wow so injustices that happened 150 years ago entitles black children to Government money? Stop living in the past and support your own children by being parents and raise them to be respectful members of society and not one with a chip on their shoulder like you have that someone (government or white people) owe you something! My hard earned money should be going to my children's education not to urban cities who don't provide for themselves. I work full time as does my husband and we raise and parent our children, try it some day.
DeleteThose dollars spent have not shown any impact for how many years.May be the dollars should be spent fixing the parents instead.
DeleteTo 11:20, absolutely we deserve it. Jews are still benefiting from the holocaust. Actually they never have to worry about losing their history or the benefits that come along with it. Slavery and the fact that blacks were denied an education for so long has been so whitewash to the point even you are believing slavery and the legacy it created never happened.
DeleteJews benefiting from the holocaust???!!! Blaming the state of Plainfield education on slavery??? How sad. How about being responsible for our own, and making something better for ourselves and our community. Stop looking for an handout!
DeleteI went to Plainfield public schools 40 years ago and I survived. I spent $12,000 a year for my kids to go to private school to learn not survive but get and education and they did well. What the question should be is a combination of the two previous commenters; why are public schools more than private schools and why are the few, and I do mean few bad influential children left to disrupt the entire system. I believe in an education for all and as such there should be a school that addresses problem children. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteYou should have been part of the solution and help to fix it instead of spending $12,000 for a private including the amount you pay on your property tax.
Delete@11:41AM Interesting logic: put your child into a failing school system in hopes that the broken, corrupt system of political-self-serving-hacks will just disappear and forego your child's educational opportunities for the sake of trying to reform a political machine.
DeleteHa!
Get out and fight the political-self serving hacks.you pay taxes right.
DeleteTo 11:41 AM - I agree with Angie L. your children are not experiments when it comes to education. It is the most important gift you can give them.
DeleteAs is so often the case, a complex problem is being addressed by comments as if it is simple. Many of the comments above have traces of truth in them but the entire issue is much more complicated. I am fascinated by the issue that the BOE has a very large budget yet too many kids are without proper books and supplies and the athletics departments and other extra curricular groups are disorganized, under funded or non-existent. In short, where is the money going if not to the kids and the programs?
ReplyDeleteI think that the Gov's proposal is dead on arrival, however it will create quite an "us against them" tone in the state, which is unfortunate and doesn't help solve the issue. But until that is addressed on the state level we should really spend some time on the local level finding out where all this extra funding is going.
Exactly!!!!!!!!!!! Where's the money!!!!
Delete"us against them" is the govs. agenda, just like his pal Trump.
Let's be real. A in Plainfield is a C somewhere else.
ReplyDelete3x the amount of financial support as other towns, and still failing - that says a lot!
There's a lot of parents here who genuinely care and make the effort and there are those parents who use school as day care.
Stop with the entitlement nonsense. If you want to be a parent then you should have the means to be able to support your child(ren) -- financially, emotionally, and otherwise. Don't make me pay for your choices, over and over and over again.
RIDICULOUS!
A student cannot learn and be open to listening if their basic needs are not met. They should come to school well rested, fed, etc. Yes?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Plainfield (and other Abbott districts) have a greater number of students whose basic needs are not met. There are students who stay up all night because they are alone and afraid while their parent(s) work the graveyard shift. Students who are tired from taking care of younger siblings while their parents work and homework is an afterthought. Students who receive no help with homework because the adults in their homes can't help them and don't have the resources to get them tutoring. Students with no food in the fridge. Students worried if their families are going to be torn apart by immigration. These same students, with problems no child should have, are then expected to come to school, learn and test on the same level as students who have access to more resources.
I know the board provides a number of resources, but it never seems to be enough for everyone. Guess what? That makes it more than a BOE problem, but a community wide problem.
No knock to parents who send their children to private schools. I get you want quality. But when the "good" students gravitate to "good" schools and leave under resourced students in the remaining schools what do you think the test scores are going to look like? (as someone stated above)
These are not made up anecdotes. I can place a face (or two, or three) to each of the above scenarios. I've had the pleasure to work with several Plainfield schools and y'all are going to stop talking about OUR kids and OUR families like they are numbers and dollar signs. These are people living real lives. For some people, getting food on the table is the triumph of the day. No one wants to see their child fail, but for some (sadly) academic achievement is a luxury they cannot afford alone. Let's support one another.
That being said, on the preschool level children are assigned family workers. I know there are social workers in the elementary schools, but there need to be more to lighten the caseload and bring a little more individual attention to families. If we can meet the basic needs of more students they will be ready to learn, teachers won't be as stressed and can focus on teaching.
And parents have GOT to be involved. I've got strategies for parental involvement if any invested parties are interested.
- Terica
When I first moved to Plainfield, there was an outcry for more recreation facilities for the kids. I never understood why the outcry wasn't for a better educational system.
ReplyDeleteI was horrified to see a banner on the Plainfield high school recently touting that the school was RECENTLY accredited. I never knew you could have a school that was non-accredited. What does that even mean? Did our kids go to the bottom of list when applying to colleges or trade schools? Did they even make the list? How did that affect the future of generations of our children? And this community was worried about having them play somewhere? Why weren't they worried about having them go somewhere to be mentored? To expose them to different careers?
I hope that now that we have a new school board, they will work on bringing the standards of Plainfield schools up to at least the top 50% in NJ.
And Terica, you should shout your message from the highest building "And parents have GOT to be involved".