Public Schools' 'Sacred Charge'
Editor's note: Dana Rone, vice president of the Newark Public School Board, testified before the New Jersey Assembly Budget Committee on March 24 that although the state is spending increasing amounts of tax dollars on public education, the children enrolled in its schools aren't benefitting. The following are excerpts from her comments.
"Despite nearly flat enrollment, our district's budget request has increased nearly $200 million to almost $900 million [since last March]. The average teacher salary in Newark has risen from approximately $67,000 to more than $77,000 this year. Our per-pupil [spending] has increased from $14,920 to $15,796. ...
"[However,] our students score drastically lower on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam than one would expect, essentially scoring at half the level they do on the state's assessments. This is significantly lower than results from many states that spend far less per pupil than we do here in New Jersey. ...
"Even as Newark's Chad Science High School, a nationally recognized example of the heights to which African-American children can excel, will close its doors this fall for lack of funding, more parochial schools continue to close in the cities of Trenton and Newark, and violence continues to escalate in the city of Camden, we continue to pour money into buildings where education does not happen, futures are broken, and lives are lost.
"Nothing short of competition, and the accountability to parents generated by it, will ensure that our children are educated, that the investment of non-Abbott taxpayers is supported and justified, and that our public schools deliver on their sacred charge, and their primary duty: student achievement."
The full text of Dana Rone's March 24, 2005, testimony before the Assembly Budget Committee