Wednesday Morning News Roundup

By • Mar 10th, 2010 • Category: Blog

- Elections Move Criticized: City clerk Robert Byrne told the City Council this week that moving municipal elections to November could create chaos inside the voting booth and potentially create the need for two separate ballots at the polls. The elections move, allowed by a state law passed early this year, is supported by Ward E councilman Steven Fulop and many good-government activists.

- CREATE to Rally: Supporters of CREATE Charter School will rally tonight to refute findings by the state Department of Education that led to acting education commissioner Bret Schundler ordering the school shut. CREATE founder Steve Lipski says he wants the state to consider a probationary period instead of complete closure.

- Density Bonus for JSQ Project? The City Council is set to consider an ordinance that would add a density bonus to new residential construction in the Marion Works Office/Residential Overlay Zone District — bordered by Newark Avenue, St. Paul’s Avenue, Garrison Avenue and the industrial zone on Van Winkle Avenue. The bill would allow for greater density in exchange for a new park; the building in question, to be developed by Coalco, the company that developed the Canco Lofts, would increase slightly from four to six stories. Still, some council members wonder if the move might set a bad precedent.

- Pershing Loses Lawsuit: Jersey City-based Pershing LLC has lost a lawsuit brought by a German investor seeking damages over losses on U.S. options traded via the company’s online system.

- Want to be a Fire or EMT Officer? A firefighter and emergency medical technician application seminar will be held Downtown on Friday by the state Hispanic Firefighters & Emergency Medical Services Society.

Today’s Best Bet:

- Bryan Beninghove and his Hangmen will bring their dirty and weird jazz to Boca Grande tonight (10 pm) for a free show.

In Statewide News:

- Christie: ‘I Was Wrong’ on State Worker Deal: Gov. Christie says that, despite pledges he made on the campaign trail, he is bound to follow a deal giving unionized state workers a 7 percent pay raise in the upcoming fiscal year, and barring him from ordering layoffs before January 2011.

- Waiting on Numbers: While school districts grit their teeth and wait for reduced state aid numbers from Gov. Christie, school officials around the state say the vast level of uncertainty has compromised their ability to get accurate information out to anxious and confused parents.

- NAACP Files Complaint Against Two State Legislators: The New Jersey NAACP has filed a formal ethics complaint with the state Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards, asking for an investigation of whether Sens. Ray Lesniak and Christopher “Kip” Bateman violated the code by sponsoring legislation to change the affordable housing obligations of cities and towns while they or their law firms represent 40 of them as paid counsels.

- Work Here, Live Here: A newly introduced bill would require all public employees in New Jersey — whether they work for the state, colleges, towns or even boards and commissions — to live in the state. Similar bills have been introduced in the past, but this one might have a better chance for success, since it has the support of both Gov. Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney.

- Bye-bye, Freeholders? The state Assembly may soon vote on a bill that changes the title of the elected officials who oversee county government from “freeholder” to “county commissioner” — a move that would affect all of the state’s 21 counties. Many officials say the term is outdated, offensive and confusing.

- Clamping Down on State-owned Cars: In an effort to crack down on what he sees as the use of government vehicles for non-official purposes. Sen. Dick Codey has introduced legislation designed to provide greater accountability and transparency in the use of official cars.

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is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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  • Alb

    >- Waiting on Numbers:

    Steve Fulop is organizing a better schools rally for March 12. It’s great that he’s making education a priority. I have a huge personal stake in New Jersey increasing support for charter schools, so, if he and others make that a priority, I think that’s wonderful.

    Obviously, there are all sorts of huge problems in the Jersey City School District, including the administration, and I think it’s important that we all address those problems.

    But I also think that it’s really critical to recognize that most of us are so completely disconnected from the public zone schools that, at this point, we have almost nothing useful to say about them.

    It seems as if school districts in some cities are pure, outright disasters, with almost no pockets of success. In those districts, the best solution might be just to start over from scratch. But I think the situation in the Jersey City School District is more complicated.

    Zone schools all around the city are turning out many students with weak standardized test scores, but they also are turning out tens of thousands of students who have decent test scores. If you go to a school like P.S. 5, you’ll find hundreds of well-behaved students who are proud of their schools, proud of themselves, and believe they are learning a lot. When I talk to children in those schools, it sounds as if they’re studying roughly what I studied in a suburban grade school when I was in the same grade.

    Of course, none of those schools is as amazing as LCCS, but how many of us went to a grade school that was as amazing as LCCS?

    The JCSD administrators make the communication divide worse than it has to be by being so hostile toward parents with an interest in improving the schools, and especially toward parents connected with the charter schools. Maybe it would be a reasonable first step to “kick the bums in the administration” out. If nothing else, maybe that would eliminate some graft.

    But, before we take even more drastic steps, such as slashing school funding, I think it’s important to send hard-headed, clear-eyed school experts to go in and tell us, very precisely, what seems to be going wrong and right in each school, and to try to build on what’s already going right in the schools and the knowledge of principals, teachers and others who have good ideas about how to fix the schools, instead of assuming that we already have all the answers.

    Certainly, consultants have done studies of the schools before, but I think they’ve approached the schools at a fairly high, polite, kidgloves kind of level, instead of getting down in the mud and really looking at, for example, what percentage of the classrooms in each school appear to have an adequate level of discipline, and what percentage of the classrooms appear to have teachers who are unable to control their classrooms or are extremely ignorant.