This is only the beginning of the hell Christie is about to experience. The school boards will announce cuts in every program middle class parents want for their kids. Sports, clubs, SAT Prep, AP courses. Anything that parents believe will negatively impact their kid’s college acceptance. You won’t hear about raising class size from 21 to 25. You won’t hear about teachers picking uo two more teaching periods a week. You’ll hear cuts of everything I’ve mentioned. If Christie had only to deal with the spending in Newark,Trenton, Camden and Paterson he’d have a chance. But once the enraged parents in Short Hills, Middleton, Ramsey, and Cherry Hill get going Chrisite’s ideas will be crushed in the Legislature by Dem and Rep alike. That’s school politics in the Garden State.
With the amount of money folks in Millburn or Chatham pay in property taxes, they might as well send little Heather or Jason to private school. The way districts are drawn on NJ or Lawn Guyland, however, you have what are essentially de facto private schools (ie schools that only pick from within their districts, and are funded by high property taxes). In other parts of the country where schools are run at the county level, you do not have this issue.
Around here, they threaten to cut bussing and shortening either the school day or school week (for maximum inconvenience of the parents).
When I was a kid, I don’t remember having fundraisers every other week. I don’t remember having to buy “communal” school supplies. I don’t remember “every other day” kindergarten. Something is very broken in the public schools, even out here in Nowhereland, Minnesota.
Money isn’t going to where it should so. Instead of hiring cultural liaisons and the like, governors should hire SQUADS of accountants to examine the numbers and find out why the school system is amazingly inefficient with the money they receive.
APf
Actually not sure how far the brinksmanship can go, quite possible Christie will be impeached if he doesn't back down by June.
Dead serious about this, he won't have any viable constituency with an organized lobbying and PR infrastructure in his corner, outside of the skeleton of the NJ Manufacturers association and some Chambers of Commerce. But even those groups have kids who will get hit hard by these cuts.