School Funding Takes Center Stage In Montclair This Week

If you want to hear more about school funding, this is your week.

Tonight, the Montclair Board of Education will discuss the 2011-2012 budget yet again—and in particular how it can close a $6.7 million budget gap.

Then, tomorrow night, Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf is set to discuss the Opportunity Scholarship Act—or what critics call a "back-door voucher bill"—at a community meeting.

Those in favor of the measure, S.1872, say it's related to corporate tax credits and not vouchers. They say that, with corporate tax credits, no payments are made from the government to nonpublic schools or directly to parents. Rather, proponents say that it's the corporations themselves that determine how to use their tax liability and whether to fund scholarships for students to attend either nonpublic or public schools.

The bill itself says that it would "encourage corporations to make voluntary contributions to nonprofit scholarship organizations."

But those against it such as the New Jersey Education Association say it would drain revenue from public education, noting that it would provide vouchers to students in “chronically failing schools” in Asbury Park, Camden, Orange, Elizabeth, Lakewood, Newark, Passaic, and Paterson. According to the NJEA, they would be able to use those vouchers to attend public schools in other districts, or any private or religious school in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, at tonight's meeting, the school board is likely to discuss ways to cut spending and generate revenue, especially as a deadline for the formal introduction of the budget looms.

In the past, a variety of cost-cutting options have been put on the table, including the closing of schools. But at the last school board meeting Superintendent Frank Alvarez recommended that all 11 schools be kept open. But school board members didn't say whether that would, indeed, be possible.

The Board of Education's public meeting will be held in the atrium of the George Inness Annex of Montclair High School, 141 Park St., at 7:30 p.m. today. You can find the agenda at http://www.montclair.k12.nj.us/WebPageFiles/44/110207.pdf.

The community meeting featuring Cerf will take place Tuesday, Feb. 8 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Charles H. Bullock School, 55 Washington St.